“None of it is real, though, because reality lies in a different, more evanescent realm. These are only the names of some of the places in the archipelago of dreams. The true reality is the one you perceive around you, or that which you are fortunate enough to imagine for yourself.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“The dream-state of the Archipelago, which is what we islanders most respond to, and least wish to see changed, seems likely to continue without interference for a long time to come.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“...an incomplete listing of anything reveals that a selection has been made, and any act of selection is of course political.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“The true reality is the one you perceive around you, or that which you are fortunate enough to imagine for yourself.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“Less welcome to the people of Paneron is the STIFLER, a humid wind that brings the allergenic pollen of carp-weed bushes from nearby unpopulated islands.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“To aspire to life forever would be to acquire living at the expense of life.”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Islanders
“I think... that love encompasses the experience of the possible transition from the pure randomness of chance to a state that has universal value. Starting out from something that is simply an encounter, a trifle, you learn that you can experience the world on the basis of difference and not only in terms of identity. And you can even be tested and suffer in the process. In today's world, it is generally thought that individuals only pursue their self-interest. Love is an antidote to that. Provided it isn't conceived only as an exchange of mutual favours, or isn't calculated way in advance as a profitable investment, love really is a unique trust placed in chance. It takes us into key areas of the experience of what is difference and, essentially, leads to the idea that you can experience the world from the perspective of difference. In this respect it has universal implications: it is an individual experience of potential universality, and is thus central to philosophy, as Plato was the first to intuit.”
― Alain Badiou, quote from In Praise of Love
“At a wat temple in the mountains of Northern Thailand, a Buddhist teacher once reminded me of a simple truth. "Life," he said, "is offered as a means of self-expression, only giving us what we seek when we listen to the
heart." The highest forms of this expression are acts of kindness.”
― Michael Newton, quote from Journey of Souls: Case Studies of Life Between Lives
“For instance, some evangelicals have turned Proverbs 31 into a woman’s job description instead of what it actually is: the blessing and affirmation of valor for the lives of women, memorized by Jewish husbands for the purpose of honoring their wives at the family table. It is meant as a celebration for the everyday moments of valor for everyday women, not as an impossible exhausting standard.”
― Sarah Bessey, quote from Jesus Feminist: An Invitation to Revisit the Bible's View of Women
“Some people compare me with Anne Frank. That frightens me, Mimmy. I don’t want to suffer her fate.”
― Zlata Filipović, quote from Zlata's Diary: A Child's Life in Wartime Sarajevo
“We really don't get to understand /why/ most of the time. It's true.”
― Matthew Quick, quote from Boy21
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.