“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart?
It is too heavy. It will always show.
Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.”
― Jean Cocteau, quote from The Holy Terrors
“At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.”
― Jean Cocteau, quote from The Holy Terrors
“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.”
― Jean Cocteau, quote from The Holy Terrors
“The world owes its enchantment to these curious creatures and their fancies; but its multiple complicity rejects them. Thistledown spirits, tragic, heartrending in their evanescence, they must go blowing headlong to perdition.”
― Jean Cocteau, quote from The Holy Terrors
“It's how we survive the hurts in life that brings us strength and gives us our beauty.”
― Beth Hoffman, quote from Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
“Have you ever felt, in the course of reading a detective novel, a guilty thrill of relief at having a character murdered before he can step onto the page and burden you with his actual existence? Detective stories always have too many characters anyway. And characters mentioned early on but never sighted, just lingering offstage, take on an awful portentous quality. Better to have them gone.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Motherless Brooklyn
“I wanted to say something back to him, and I knew deep down that he was right, though I didn't have the words yet. Until that disease chose me, I had lived a charmed life of grace and ease, while Matsu had always to work hard for what he desired. He has always known where beauty comes from. Later on, when the disease spread over the left side of my face, I tried to accept the burden placed on me, to tell myself that real beauty comes from deep within. But I'm afraid sometimes I reverted back to my spoiled ways. But, Stephen-san, can you imagine what it was like to watch your own face slowly transformed into a monster? Have you ever awakened in the morning from a series of nightmares, fearing what you might have turned into during the night? I will not lie to you and tell you that it was easy. There were times when I thought I could actually feel my skin shrinking, pulling against my bones and muscles, slowly suffocating me. Matsu comforted me as much as he could by having me work on the house, or in the garden, but no matter how much pleasure I found in them, they were still cold and inanimate. I longed for my past life. Matsu always knew that the peace of mine I needed could only be found within myself.”
― Gail Tsukiyama, quote from The Samurai's Garden
“Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi
“All right," Jake said, clapping his hands. "Which one of you little punks is gonna teach me how to play Chutes and Ladders?”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Monument 14
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.