“There's no paradise in love! It's--you're thinking in the wrong way. Love--the sort you're asking me for--is of the earth, earthy. Beautiful, maybe--sometimes it be like a gold mine that one digs into. But of the earth--earthy. Tis all wrong to speak of paradise. Love may be the nearest human beings can get--but it is still outside the gates--for it is human--easily lost--animal in the way it work, though more, much more than animal. Oftentimes it--uplifts, transports...but--but it should not be mistaken. It is a--a terrible mistake to pretend it is something quite different.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“Tenderness is not like money: the more you give to one, the more you have for others.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“No man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't desire....But every man wants his wife to be a woman that other men don't get.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“Love is not a possession to hoard. You give it away. It's a blessing and a balm.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“Not for the first time he was conscious of emotional lights and shades in his wife that could not be categorized, could not be named as sensuous or emotional as such, perhaps derived from each and gave to each but in essence grew out of a deeper fund of temperament that he still could not altogether apprehend. The simple miner's daughter was not simple in character at all.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“Either you trust a man and give him authority to carry out his treatment or you do not. When it goes well you are happy that you did so. When it goes ill you think, if only . . .”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“[When men were ill, they] liked the importance, the confidence, the attack of a demi-god, whose voice was already echoing through the house as he mounted the stairs, who had the maids scurrying for water or blankets and the patient's relatives hanging on every word. Behenna was such a man. His very appearance made the heart beat faster even if, as often happened, it later stopped beating altogether. Failure did not depress him. If one of his patients died, it was not the fault of his remedies, it was the fault of the patient.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“down. Below this the water was”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“His parents should be here soon. I shall feel happier when they are able to take the responsibility.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
“That reminds me of when you used to call and see us before Christmas, the year before last. Somehow–somehow life was all dark and secret and beautiful then.”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Four Swans
Winston Graham
Born place: in Manchester, The United Kingdom
Born date June 30, 1908
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“When a man invents an image that he wants to propagate, that he may even want to substitute for himself, he starts by experimenting, making mistakes, sketching out freaks and other non-viable monsters that he has to tear up unless they disintegrate of their own accord. But the operative image is the one that's left after the person dies or withdraws from the world, as in the case of Socrates, Christ, Saladin, Saint-Just and so on. They succeeded in projecting an image around themselves and into the future. It doesn't matter whether or not the image corresponds to what they were really like: they managed to wrest a powerful image from that reality.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love
“Yes,” her boss responded, “one for us and one for the customer.” “I’m sorry, so you are saying that the client is asking for a copy and we need a copy for internal use?” “Actually, I’ll check with the client—they haven’t asked for anything. But I definitely want a copy. That’s just how I do business.” “Absolutely,” she responded. “Thanks for checking with the customer. Where would you like to store the in-house copy? There’s no more space in the file room here.” “It’s fine. You can store it anywhere,” he said, slightly perturbed now. “Anywhere?” she mirrored again, with calm concern. When another person’s tone of voice or body language is inconsistent with his words, a good mirror can be particularly useful. In this case, it caused her boss to take a nice, long pause—something he did not often do. My student sat silent. “As a matter of fact, you can put them in my office,” he said, with more composure than he’d had the whole conversation. “I’ll get the new assistant to print it for me after the project is done. For now, just create two digital backups.” A day later her boss emailed and wrote simply, “The two digital backups will be fine.” Not long after, I received an ecstatic email from this student: “I was shocked! I love mirrors! A week of work avoided!” Mirroring will make you feel awkward as heck when you first try it. That’s the only hard part about it; the technique takes a little practice. Once you get the hang of it, though, it’ll become a conversational Swiss Army knife valuable in just about every professional and social setting.”
― Chris Voss, quote from Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It
“what might have looked like courage proved to be a deficit of common sense and an excess of self-importance, too strong a faith in his genius and superiority—not courage at all, but the rash actions of an ordinary narcissist incapable of imagining that he might fail.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from The Silent Corner
“I'd spent my entire life as a teacup with a jagged crack running down the side, an imperfect vessel threatening to spill my contents onto the table at any random moment. Tolerated but not adored. It didn't seem like it would be even possible to love me. Probabilistically unlikely at best. But for Abelard, the jagged crack was the interesting thing about me.”
― Laura Creedle, quote from The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily
“You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Yes Please
The Winner
Fluke: Or, I Know Wh...
Truman
Second Glance
The Chronology of Wa...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.
