Quotes from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

“He had an extraordinarily casual air about him. I'd noticed that before, when he had tossed himself out the window.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

“I frowned. Evidently, Sangris wasn't a cat who could shape-shift. It was more difficult than that. He was a nothing who occasionally pretended to be a cat. "I wish I could know what it's like for myself, that's all," I said. I felt rather the way a jail inmate would if a bird flew up and shouted through her window bars: This freedom thing? Yeah, not so great.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

“I used to come here to think," he told me, landing beside the tree. It was so short that my head was only a few inches above his.
"Sangris," I said in shock, "you think? When did this start?”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

“Then I got to my feet, and, taking my arms, he drew me out of my picture frame, into the darkness and the heat, to a place where the ground was frighteningly, thrillingly far away, and the sunless sky was burning and trembling all around us.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

“I rely on a backbone of books and, for the most part, it's enough to keep me quiet, half-drugged with dreams of imaginary worlds.”
― Rinsai Rossetti, quote from The Girl with Borrowed Wings

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Popular quotes

“You think you're the only one?" Theo said. "Everyone has scars. We just don't all wear them on the outside.”
― Natasha Friend, quote from My Life in Black and White

“The reality of the human condition is such that, according to Porter (and I agree), we must “salvage our fragments of happiness” out of life’s inevitable sufferings.”
― Gary L. Thomas, quote from Sacred Marriage: Celebrating Marriage as a Spiritual Discipline

“Lo único libre son los precios. En nuestras tierras, Adam Smith necesita a Mussolini. Libertad de inversiones, libertad de precios, libertad de cambios: cuanto más libres andan los negocios, más presa está la gente. La prosperidad de pocos maldice a todos los demás. ¿Quién conoce una riqueza que sea inocente? En tiempos de crisis, ¿no se vuelven conservadores los liberales, y fascistas los conservadores? ¿Al servicio de quiénes cumplen su tarea los asesinos de personas y países? Orlando”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Days and Nights of Love and War

“[There is] a widespread approach to ideas which Objectivism repudiates altogether: agnosticism. I mean this term in a sense which applies to the question of God, but to many other issues also, such as extra-sensory perception or the claim that the stars influence man’s destiny. In regard to all such claims, the agnostic is the type who says, “I can’t prove these claims are true, but you can’t prove they are false, so the only proper conclusion is: I don’t know; no one knows; no one can know one way or the other.”

The agnostic viewpoint poses as fair, impartial, and balanced. See how many fallacies you can find in it. Here are a few obvious ones: First, the agnostic allows the arbitrary into the realm of human cognition. He treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider, discuss, evaluate—and then he regretfully says, “I don’t know,” instead of dismissing the arbitrary out of hand. Second, the onus-of-proof issue: the agnostic demands proof of a negative in a context where there is no evidence for the positive. “It’s up to you,” he says, “to prove that the fourth moon of Jupiter did not cause your sex life and that it was not a result of your previous incarnation as the Pharaoh of Egypt.” Third, the agnostic says, “Maybe these things will one day be proved.” In other words, he asserts possibilities or hypotheses with no jot of evidential basis.

The agnostic miscalculates. He thinks he is avoiding any position that will antagonize anybody. In fact, he is taking a position which is much more irrational than that of a man who takes a definite but mistaken stand on a given issue, because the agnostic treats arbitrary claims as meriting cognitive consideration and epistemological respect. He treats the arbitrary as on a par with the rational and evidentially supported. So he is the ultimate epistemological egalitarian: he equates the groundless and the proved. As such, he is an epistemological destroyer. The agnostic thinks that he is not taking any stand at all and therefore that he is safe, secure, invulnerable to attack. The fact is that his view is one of the falsest—and most cowardly—stands there can be.”
― Leonard Peikoff, quote from Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand

“I'm too careless. I don't put out enough effort. I'm tired.”
― Charles Bukowski, quote from South of No North

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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.