“Neither could speak. It was the day that a silence settled on the pair of them, and they were bound close by it. Will felt, in that moment, too small to face such misery, but she knew that she would have to expand now, with a terrible rush, to fill the empty space.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“Intoxicated with her success and his awed eyes, and with the way the wind rushed by and flicked delicate strands of saliva across her cheeks, Will spread out her arms, spun in a pirouette. Shumba chose that moment to stumble over a rabbit hole and with a terrific crash, that sounded and resounded for miles and miles of flei, Will fell into the long grass.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“It was never too late, she said, to turn a living thing around, and a garden was the most living of things.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“Her voice, he thought, was like water running over pebbles in sunshine.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“A beetle lumbered up onto her arm, and she stilled herself, enjoying the tickling feeling of its thread-thin feet. It was deep green with shimmers of blue and turquoise, with pitch-black legs. She kissed it very softly. If happiness were a color, it would be the color of this beetle, thought Wil.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“Oh.' A syllable can express a great deal. Will's sounded of resignation but also of swear words, and the smell of rotting vegetation, and wary amusement and bitten fingernails.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
“He sat desiring the girl - a speed-hardened straw-colored junkie stewardess, a spoiled Augustana Lutheran, compounded of airport Muzak and beauty parlor school. Her eyes were fouled with smog and propane spray.”
― Robert Stone, quote from Dog Soldiers
“At high school I was never comfortable for a minute. I did not know about Lonnie. Before an exam, she got icy hands and palpitations, but I was close to despair at all times. When I was asked a question in class, any simple little question at all, my voice was apt to come out squeaky, or else hoarse and trembling. When I had to go to the blackboard I was sure—even at a time of the month when this could not be true—that I had blood on my skirt. My hands became slippery with sweat when they were required to work the blackboard compass. I could not hit the ball in volleyball; being called upon to perform an action in front of others made all my reflexes come undone. I hated Business Practice because you had to rule pages for an account book, using a straight pen, and when the teacher looked over my shoulder all the delicate lines wobbled and ran together. I hated Science; we perched on stools under harsh lights behind tables of unfamiliar, fragile equipment, and were taught by the principal of the school, a man with a cold, self-relishing voice—he read the Scriptures every morning—and a great talent for inflicting humiliation. I hated English because the boys played bingo at the back of the room while the teacher, a stout, gentle girl, slightly cross-eyed, read Wordsworth at the front. She threatened them, she begged them, her face red and her voice as unreliable as mine. They offered burlesqued apologies and when she started to read again they took up rapt postures, made swooning faces, crossed their eyes, flung their hands over their hearts. Sometimes she would burst into tears, there was no help for it, she had to run out into the hall. Then the boys made loud mooing noises; our hungry laughter—oh, mine too—pursued her. There was a carnival atmosphere of brutality in the room at such times, scaring weak and suspect people like me.”
― Alice Munro, quote from Dance of the Happy Shades
“Don’t you wear glasses, George?” “Not anymore. I had my eyes lasered.” Can you say midlife crisis? Radial keratotomy is the new red Porsche.”
― Lisa Scottoline, quote from Dirty Blonde
“Of course, Moomintrolls don't wear clothes, except sometimes in bed.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Comet in Moominland
“Exfiltrations are like abortions," I said. "You don't need one unless something's gone wrong. If you need one, don't try to do it yourself. We can give you a nice, clean job.”
― Antonio J. Méndez, quote from Argo: How the CIA & Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History
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.
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