“Given enough time, you could convince yourself that loneliness was something better, that it was solitude, the ideal condition for reflection, even a kind of freedom.
Once you were thus convinced, you were foolish to open the door and let anyone in, not all the way in. You risked the hard-won equilibrium, that tranquility that you called peace”
“Appearances are not reality; but they often can be a convincing alternative to it. You can control appearances most of the time, but facts are what they are. When the facts are too sharp, you can craft a cheerful version of the situation and cover the facts the way that you can covered a battered old four-slice toaster with a knitted cozy featuring images of kittens.”
“A scar is not always a flaw. Sometimes a scar may be redemption inscribed in the flesh, a memorial to something endured, to something lost.”
“There are people who want everybody dead. When you get over being surprised about that, you have a high amazement threshold.”
“These days, people spent too much time striving to understand their feelings - and then ended up with none that were genuine.”
“He, too, had been glassed-in for a long time, by choice. Now and then he had lifted a hammer to shatter through to something, but he had never struck the blow because he didn't know what he wanted on the other side of the glass.”
“When a knot gets to tight, you can always cut the rope”
“By their subtle reversal of all images, mirrors seemed to be windows to another world in opposistion to this one, a world where everything appeared familiar but was infact profoundly different”
“Maybe it was this: The name of a person marked for murder is just a name, but the face makes real the cost of violence, for if we have the nerve to look, we can see in any face our own vulnerability.”
“The killer walked with a light step that could be achieved only by someone not weighed down with a conscience, and went out into the night's embrace.”
“Gradually, however, she revealed a frustration with the willful ignorance that is an abiding human trait, an indignation at the cruelty that people visit upon one another. She might see the world as hopeless, but she believed it did not have to remain that way.”
“Fear is a hammer, and when the people are beaten finally to the conviction that their existence hangs by a frayed thread, they will be led where they need to go.”
“Sudden falls can come to societies that know too little history or that have furnished their minds with easy one-note propaganda in place of the true complexity and terrible beauty of the storied past.”
“Sorrow is not a raven perched persistently above a chamber door. Sorrow is a thing with teeth, and while in time it retreats, it comes back at the whisper of its name.”
“CLOV:
Do you believe in the life to come?
HAMM:
Mine was always that.”
“Chauvet Cave: The Discovery of the World’s Oldest Paintings, Jean-Marie Chauvet”
“Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds”
“In a way, an explanation had never been the point. She had simply liked being the only one who wanted to find out the truth.”
“The world ain't ready for true black genius. In every nigger is a cup of African blood from kings and queens of divine nature, mathematicians, craftsmen, men and women of the land. I have known some sisters and brothers would scare Einstein back into East European caves with the magnificence of their minds. We are a people with a practical nature and great vision. We have built nations, discovered treasures for everyday use. Our people are a great race of people, and though the Europeans raped and plundered, we have kept inner riches. You got a cup of African blood and that mean something, means you got a responsibility to be proud of it and use your talents or suffer self-destruction.”
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.