Quotes from The Fourth Hand

John Irving ·  368 pages

Rating: (25.7K votes)


“Lemties neįmanoma įžvelgti, nebent jei sapnuoji ar esi apsvaigęs iš meilės.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“Aren’t eccentricities fairly common among overachievers.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“As for Dr. Zajac’s modest contribution to the ongoing pollution of the Charles River… well, let’s be fair… In his hopelessly old-fashioned opinion, a lot worse than dogshit was dumped into the Charles on daily basis.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“And feeling like a failed sexual predator, because of pregnant Mary…”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“Americans are suckers for an English accent.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand



“When they weren’t praying, they did what schoolgirls everywhere do. They laughed, they shrieked, they burst into hysterical sobs – all for no apparent reason…

The schoolgirls also played the worst Western music imaginable, and they took a surfeit of baths – so many baths that the traditional inn where Wallingford and Evelyn Arbuthnot stayed was repeatedly running out of hot water.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person’s life.”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


“Was he nice? He didn’t know. He hoped he was, but how many of us truly know?”
― John Irving, quote from The Fourth Hand


About the author

John Irving
Born place: in Exeter, New Hampshire, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“That’s how you know you’ve mastered a videogame—when a bunch of butt-hurt crybabies start to accuse you of cheating in an effort to cope with the beatdown they’ve just suffered at your hands.”
― Ernest Cline, quote from Armada


“He allowed a guarded love out, but he never allowed any in. With Tara… everything was wide open. She was the ocean and his heart was a gaping hole at the bottom, sucking her down with a scary ferocity. At that rate it devoured, he’d drain her dry. And the cravings… they seemed to constantly evolve and morph into… what? Only God knew.”
― Lucian Bane, quote from White Knight Dom Academy 2nd Semester


“If Wayne isn’t in here somewhere already,” Wax said, “I’ll eat your handbag and try to burn it for Allomantic power.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from Shadows of Self


“how do i teach my ears to hear songs without the ghosts of you inside of them?”
― Sabrina Benaim, quote from Depression & Other Magic Tricks


“If they had only known where they were trying to go, they could have improvised and found their own way without someone stepping in to point them in the right direction.”
― quote from The Jackrabbit Factor: Why You Can


Interesting books

The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays
(3.7K)
The Monsters and the...
by J.R.R. Tolkien
Welcome to Temptation
(29.6K)
Welcome to Temptatio...
by Jennifer Crusie
Shaman's Crossing
(17.9K)
Shaman's Crossing
by Robin Hobb
Burning Alive
(5.2K)
Burning Alive
by Shannon K. Butcher
The Beach House
(28.3K)
The Beach House
by Jane Green
By the Sword
(18.3K)
By the Sword
by Mercedes Lackey

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.