“And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there's another family and that's the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they're as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don't have to look out for you and they don't have to love you. They choose to.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“What molds us is what maims us.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Do you honestly think Lenin is any different from J.P. Morgan? That you, if you were given absolute power, would behave any differently? Do you know the primary difference between men and gods?...Gods don't think they can become men.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Do you know the primary difference between men and gods? ... Gods don’t think they can become men”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“He was done with every lie he'd ever allowed himself to believe, every lie he'd ever lived, every lie.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“It was one of those sneaky days in late winter where spring came along to get a lay of the land.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“This terrible smallness of men was bigger than him, bigger than anything.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“You‘ve always had a soft heart, son. You just hide it better than most." Danny shrugged. "Starting to hide it from myself, then, I guess." "Always the danger, that. Then one day, sure, you can‘t remember where you left all those pieces you tried so hard to hold on. Or why you work so hard at the holding.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Rumors or no, Thomas, if the men strike, we'll see fecal gravity at work like never before. Ain't a man in this room who won't be covered in shit.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“On September 7th, after the Cubs dropped Game Three, the two teams boarded the Michigan Central together to embark on the twenty-seven hour trip, and Babe Ruth got drunk and started stealing hats.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“But Curtis had come to the table with something they’d never expected, something they would have thought outmoded and out-lived in the modern age: a kind of fundamental righteousness that only the fundamental possessed. Unfettered by doubt, it achieved the appearance of moral intelligence and a resolute conscience. The terrible thing was how small it made you feel, how weaponless. How could you fight righteous rage if the only arms you bore were logic and sanity?”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“You can have two families in this life, Joe, the one you’re born to and the one you build.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Music”—he smiled his glorious smile and raised his index finger—“music speaks for the soul because words are too small.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Luther had passed many a white church in his day, heard them singing their hymns and chanting their "Amens" and seen them gather on a porch or two afterward with their lemonade and piety, but he knew if he ever showed up on their steps, starving or injured, the only response he’d get to a plea for human kindness would be the amen of a shotgun pointed in his face.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Craftsmanship, his Uncle Cornelius had once told him, was just a fancy word for what happened when labor met love.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“he'd never believed that power, in any shape or form, was anything more than the intemperate protrusion on the egomaniacal heart. Since all egomaniacs were insecure to their frightened cores, they this weilded "power" barbarically so the world would not find them out”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“If a man was lucky, he was moving toward something his whole life.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“He was just getting started. He was ready to bust wide open. He could feel it. Big things. Big things were coming. From him. From everywhere. That was the feeling he got lately, as if the whole world had been held in a stable, him included. But soon, soon it was going to bust out all over the place.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Not that Danny seemed intent on fucking it up, just that he was a man after all, and no one knew better than Luther himself how completely a man could step on his own dick when what he thought he wanted contradicted what he knew he needed. The”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“As they've always been. And they don't change just because you want them to.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“need to confess anything to anyone. You go.” “And why would I go?”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Had eyes Luther’d seen before in the white poor—spent his whole life eating rage in place of food. Developed a taste for it he wouldn’t lose no matter how regular he ate for the rest of his life.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Soft waves broke against the rocks.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there’s another family and that’s the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they’re as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don’t have to look out for you and they don’t have to love you. They choose to.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Do you know the primary difference between men and gods?” “No, sir.” “Gods don’t think they can become men.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
“Your first family is your blood family and you always be true to that. That means something. But there’s another family and that’s the kind you go out and find. Maybe even by accident sometimes. And they’re as much blood as your first family. Maybe more so, because they don’t have to look out for you and they don’t have to love you. They choose to.” “So”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from The Given Day
Dennis Lehane
Born place: in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“People are so like their first mother Eve: what they are given doesn't take their fancy. The serpent is forever enticing them to come to him, to the tree of mystery. They must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them.”
― Alexander Pushkin, quote from Evžen Oněgin
“Remember from now on whenever something tends to make you unhappy, draw on this principle: 'This is no misfortune; but bearing with it bravely is a blessing.”
― Epictetus, quote from Discourses and Selected Writings
“If love is easy, you're not doing it right.”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Surprise Me
“My first choice would be to give you more god children, but that would be far too cruel a thing to do—to them.”
― Allison Tebo, quote from The Reluctant Godfather
“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’ but ‘That’s funny.”
― Frans de Waal, quote from Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
The Moonstone
The Book of Lost Thi...
The Illustrated Man
The Kill Order
Rendezvous with Rama
IdenticalBookQuoters 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.
