“I have a secret passion for mercy. But justice is what keeps happening to people.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“We merged our lonelinesses once again, in something less than love but sweeter than self. I didn’t get home to West Los Angeles after all.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“I’ve spilled all my secrets. How do you make people do it?” “I don’t. People like to talk about what’s hurting them. It takes the edge off the pain sometimes.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“What did the old man want?” “Your husband’s money, just like everyone else.” “But not you, eh?” Her voice was sardonic. “Not me,” I said. “Money costs too much.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“daughter?’ ‘She was a beautiful child.’ Mrs Williams’s eyes grew misty with the quasi-maternal feelings of a procuress.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“That isn’t your real motivation. I know your type. You have a secret passion for justice. Why don’t you admit it?” “I have a secret passion for mercy,” I said. “But justice is what keeps happening to people.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
“I’m sick of always doing the professional thing for prudential reasons.’ I”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Goodbye Look
Ross Macdonald
Born place: in Los Gatos, California,, The United States
Born date December 13, 1915
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“Words are not the only way we communicate, you and I. They never were.”
― Meredith Duran, quote from The Duke of Shadows
“In this particular tub, two knees jut up
like icebergs, while minute brown hairs rise
on arms and legs in a fringe of kelp; green soap
navigates the tidal slosh of seas
breaking on legendary beaches; in faith
we shall board our imagined ship and wildly sail
among sacred islands of the mad till death
shatters the fabulous stars and makes us real.”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from The Collected Poems
“The only source of my power are the pages you hold and the words written thereon. As you read them, I hope the magic starts to work between my words and your imagination.”
― Elizabeth Vaughan, quote from Warprize
“Stop! By the Keys I hold, I order the Nothing to stop! House, you must hold against the Void!”
― Garth Nix, quote from Superior Saturday
“At the same time, Herodotus sets himself a most ambitious task: to record the history of the world. No one before him ever attempted this. He is the first to have hit upon the idea. Constantly gathering material for his work and interrogating witnesses, bards, and priests, he finds that each of them remembers something different—different and differently. Moreover, many centuries before us, he discovers an important yet treacherous and complicating trait of human memory: people remember what they want to remember, not what actually happened. Everyone colors events after his fashion, brews up his own mélange of reminiscences. Therefore getting through to the past itself, the past as it really was, is impossible. What are available to us are only its various versions, more or less credible, one or another of them suiting us better at any given time. The past does not exist. There are only infinite renderings of it.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, quote from Travels with Herodotus
Corrupt
The Incarnations
The Creeper Man
Narziss und Goldmund
Pangeran Kecil
BurnBookQuoters 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.
