Quotes from The Guide

“It seems to me that we generally do not have a correct measure of our own wisdom.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“One often hears of suicide pacts. It seems to me a wonderful solution, like going on a long holiday. We could sit and talk one night perhaps, and sip our glasses of milk, and maybe we should wake up in a trouble-free world. I’d propose it this very minute if I were sure you would keep the pact, but I fear that I may go ahead and you may change your mind at the last second.
‘And have the responsibility of disposing of your body?’ I said, which was the worst thing I could have said.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“A man who preferred to dress like a permanent tourist was just what a guide passionately looked for all his life. You may want to ask why I became a guide or when. I was a guide for the same reason as someone else is a signaler, porter, or guard. It is fated thus. Don’t laugh at my railway associations. The railways got into my blood very early in life. Engines with their tremendous clanging”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“The unbeaten brat will remain unlearned,”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“But it was like hiding a corpse. I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing in this world can be hidden or suppressed. All such attempts are like holding an umbrella to conceal the sun.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“In a few months I was a seasoned guide. I had viewed myself as an amateur guide and a professional shopman, but now gradually I began to think of myself as a part-time shop-keeper and a full-time tourist guide.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“But you are not my wife. You are a woman who will go to bed with anyone who flatters your antics. That’s”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

“By the twelfth day of his fast, Raju himself has become a tourist attraction. Before an enormous crowd and an American television crew, the starving man is helped down to the drought-stricken river to pray:”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The Guide

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Popular quotes

“When one does something, one must do it wholly and well. Those bastard existences where you sell suet all day and write poetry at night are made for mediocre minds – like those horses that are equally good for saddle and carriage, the worst kind, that can neither jump a ditch nor pull a plow.”
― Gustave Flaubert, quote from Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

“In fact the "mask" theme has come up several times in my background reading. Richard Sennett, for example, in "The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism", and Robert Jackall, in "Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate managers", refer repeatedly to the "masks" that corporate functionaries are required to wear, like actors in an ancient Greek drama. According to Jackall, corporate managers stress the need to exercise iron self-control and to mask all emotion and intention behind bland, smiling, and agreeable public faces.
Kimberly seems to have perfected the requisite phoniness and even as I dislike her, my whole aim is to be welcomed into the same corporate culture that she seems to have mastered, meaning that I need to "get in the face" of my revulsion and overcome it. But until I reach that transcendent point, I seem to be stuck in an emotional space left over from my midteen years: I hate you; please love me.”
― Barbara Ehrenreich, quote from Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream

“Later, I learned that people thought I was being courageous. Not so. There were selfish reasons for my behavior. I shoved everyone away and kept more or less to myself, silent, stone-faced, although continuing nonetheless to help the other men, as we received one child after another from the divers and wrapped them in blankets and dispatched them in stretchers up the steep slope to the road and the waiting ambulances, as if by doing that I could somehow prolong this part of the nightmare and postpone waking up to what I knew would be the inescapable and endless reality of it. No one spoke. Somehow, at the bottom, I did not want this awful work to end. That's not courage.”
― Russell Banks, quote from The Sweet Hereafter

“I did not think about what sort of people might read it. In fact, I was writing it for myself.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from One Man's Bible

“Monogamy doesn’t work unless it rises up from the bones. Because it promises nothing but fear and tension when forced on you. It fills you up with despair where there might be joy. It shoves guilt and paranoia and self-loathing down your throat, if you don’t truly want it.”
― Will Christopher Baer, quote from Hell's Half Acre

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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.