“On May 9, 1916, the British and French entered into a clandestine treaty on how they intended to carve up the region. The treaty was the Sykes-Picot, named for the negotiators. Always described as infamous, the treaty ignored both Jewish aspirations and Sharif Husain’s personal ambitions. And so Palestine became the ‘twice promised land.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“Nonsense. Islam is unable to live at peace with anyone. We Arabs are the worst. We can’t live with the world, and even more terrible, we can’t live with each other. In the end it will not be Arab against Jews but Arab against Arab. One day our oil will be gone, along with our ability to blackmail. We have contributed nothing to human betterment in centuries, unless you consider the assassin and the terrorist as human gifts. The world will tell us to go to hell. We, who tried to humiliate the Jews, will find ourselves humiliated as the scum of the earth. Oh, put down that silly potsherd and let us have some coffee.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“So before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“I never got over the horror of watching their graduation ceremonies, performed before their parents. After a demonstration of ‘military prowess’ and personal courage the ceremony ended with their biting off the heads of snakes. As the blood dripped down their chins, they roasted the dead animals for a victory feast. Other schools had the children strangle puppies and drink their blood.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“We once again man the barricades -- alone. Berated by our smug, so-called allies, of the Western Democracies. Islam is going to turn this world inside out before this century is out and you'd better have enough guts to deal with it.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“Perhaps the bazaar looks disorganized to you, but it works for us. Perhaps Islam looks fanatical to you, but it provides us with the means to survive the harshness of this life and prepare us for a better life hereafter.”
― Leon Uris, quote from The Haj
“Wife, to him, was someone who stood for stability, for
coming home, for dealing with all the shit he wasn’t able to deal with. For providing a real life and not this insanity.”
― Aleksandr Voinov, quote from Special Forces
“If anyone should talk to her," Renfield piped up, "it should be me. We're the most compatible, culturewise. I'm sure that on top of feeling as if she's been thrust into one of the many levels of Hades, with all of its attendant demons, she feels like a lady wandering, lost, amongst the mannerless cads of the slums."
We were all silent for a moment before Tom asked, "You do realize that we're sitting right here, right?"
"Oh, I am horribly aware of this fact."
"Just checking.”
― Lia Habel, quote from Dearly, Departed
“He laughs. And in his laugh I hear bliss. I hear feet dancing, the rush of skirts twirling. The sound of children.
Is that the first sign of love?
You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.”
― Alyson Richman, quote from The Lost Wife
“For the better part of my adult life I’d been making deadlines and chasing the next deal. It had been so long since I had stopped to reflect, I wasn’t sure what was important any longer. Things were moving so fast that there was no time to look below the surface. Everyone around me seemed to be operating on the same level, and it just fed on itself. We were all caught up in a whirlwind of important meetings and expensive lunches, do-or-die negotiations, lucrative deals conducted in fancy hotels with warmed towel racks and monogrammed robes.”
― Dean Karnazes, quote from Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner
“In America, they make such things of wire and of sponge-rubber, such as you use in the sets of tanks. You never know there, whether there is any truth in the matter, unless you are a bad boy as I am.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Across the River and into the Trees
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.