“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
“Sorry wastes time. You have to live your life like you'll never be sorry. It's easier just to do the right thing from the start so there's nothing to apologize for.”
― Jennifer Niven, quote from All the Bright Places
“color, from badger-colored veterans who could handle”
― Rudyard Kipling, quote from The Jungle Books
“But in both instances, the dissemination of the information diluted its power. As Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis once wrote, "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
― Steven D. Levitt, quote from Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (Freakonomics, #1)
“intersection of Broadway and Houston Street. Here, it was once sagely remarked, you could fire a shotgun in any direction without hitting an honest man;”
― Caleb Carr, quote from The Alienist
“should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It’s hollow.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, quote from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
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.