Quotes from The Flanders Panel

Arturo Pérez-Reverte ·  295 pages

Rating: (15.7K votes)


“You don't choose your friends, they choose you, and you either reject them or you accept them without reservations.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“Chess is all about getting the king into check, you see. It's about killing the father. I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“[L]ife is like an expensive restaurant where, sooner or later, someone always hands you the bill, which is not to say that you should deny the joy and pleasure afforded by the dishes already eaten.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“I imagine he's married. Or was ... He seems damaged in the way that only we women can damage men.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“In affairs of the heart, Princess," César used to say, "one should offer neither advice nor solutions ... just a clean hanky when it seems appropriate.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel



“life is like an expensive restaurant where, sooner or later, someone always hands you the bill, which is not to say that you should deny the joy and pleasure afforded by the dishes already eaten.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“Sometimes," he said at last, as if it were an enormous effort to formulate his thoughts, "I wonder if chess is something man invented or if he merely discovered it. It's as if it were something that has always been there, since the beginning of the universe. Like whole numbers.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“And only when he'd finished and fallen silent did the vague smile return to his lips, in apparent gentle mockery of himself, of the man he had just described and for whom, deep down, he felt neither compassion nor disdain, only a kind of disillusioned, sympathetic solidarity.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“It's usually the father who teaches the child his first moves in the game. And the dream of any son who plays chess is to beat his father. To kill the king. Besides, it soon becomes evident in chess that the father, or the king, is the weakest piece on the board. He's under continual act, in constant need of protection, of such tactics as castling, and he can only move one square at a time. Paradoxically, the king is also indispensable. The king gives the game its name, since the word 'chess' derives from the Persian word shah meaning king, and is pretty much the same in most languages.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“Besides, life is a succession of events that link up with each other whether one wants them to or not.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel



“I would say that chess has more to do with the art of murder than it does with the art of war.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“At some point in his life, César had realised that no one ever learns from anyone else's mistakes and, consequently, there was only one dignified and proper attitude to be taken by a guardian - which, after all, was what he was - and that consisted in sitting down next to his young ward, taking her by the hand and listening, with infinite kindness, to the evolving story of her loves and griefs, whilst nature took its own wise and inevitable course.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“Y supo de mujeres capaces de desmontar con minuciosidad de relojero los resortes que mueven a un hombre.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


“There are exactly the same things in a room at night as there are in the daytime; it's just that you can't see them.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Flanders Panel


About the author

Arturo Pérez-Reverte
Born place: in Cartagena, Murcia, Spain
Born date November 25, 1951
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Love is when you feel safe in someone’s arms, when he’s the first thing you want to see in the morning, love is surrendering. You risk getting hurt but you don’t care. You are willing to give someone the power to break your heart. Love means seeing someone at their worst and still seeing the good in them, love means someone is perfect for you despite their imperfections”
― Cora Reilly, quote from Bound by Hatred


“Becoming leader of this place had been his calling, but Liv had been his destiny.”
― Mimi Jean Pamfiloff, quote from Mermen


“I didn’t have all the answers but experience told me that they would come.”
― Michael Connelly, quote from Lost Light


“One day, I will be a child again. Carved toys will caper and dance from my mind, out across rock I will raise as mountains. Through grasses I will proclaim forests. For too long I have been trapped in this world of measures, proportions and scale. For too long I have known and understood the limits of what is possible, so cruel in rejecting all that can be imagined. In this way, friend, we are each of us not one but two lives, for ever locked in mortal combat, and from all things at hand, we make weapons.’ - Hust Henarald”
― Steven Erikson, quote from Forge of Darkness


“To look at a star by glances—to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward it the exterior portions of the retina (more susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best appreciation of its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision fully upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye in the latter case, but in the former, there is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue


Interesting books

Powerless
(3.4K)
Powerless
by Matthew Cody
Plum Lovin'
(47K)
Plum Lovin'
by Janet Evanovich
Patient Zero
(22.3K)
Patient Zero
by Jonathan Maberry
From Rags
(13.8K)
From Rags
by Suzanne Wright
Toxic
(3.6K)
Toxic
by Jus Accardo
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
(6.9K)
The Autobiography of...
by Gertrude Stein

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.