“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
“Everyone knows they re going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.”
― Mitch Albom, quote from Tuesdays with Morrie
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
― Milan Kundera, quote from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“Man...heats up like a lightbulb: red hot in the twinkling of an eye and cold again in a flash. The female, on the other hand...heats up like an iron. Slowly, over a low heat, like tasty stew. But then, once she has heated up, there's no stopping her.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, quote from The Shadow of the Wind
“I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.”
― Daniel Keyes, quote from Flowers for Algernon
“I just did some calculations and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit.”
― John Green, quote from Looking for Alaska
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.