“Inflection is the adjective of language. It carries the subtleties of delight and horror, the essence of culture and social process.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“Myths are not fiction, but history seen with a poet's eyes and recounted in a poet's terms.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“A good bureaucracy is the best tool of oppression ever invented.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“Hittite law emphasized restitution rather than revenge. Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Semitic response—never to forgive and never to forget.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“The mystery of consciousness? Erroneous data—significant results.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“Ignoring that which is false is also a knowing. Thus—learning. To learn is to grow and to grow is to live. You may practice forgetting and thus learn.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“Even the seemingly immortal gods survive only as long as they are required by mortal men.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“He did smile at her, though, but she did not return the smile. Her teeth were somewhere in the house.”
― John Grisham, quote from Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer
“The usual stuff. School, homework, I don’t remember everything.” Theo had watched enough trials to know that answers should often be kept vague, and that “I don’t recall” and “I don’t remember” were perfectly acceptable in many instances. “Did you chat online?” the detective asked. “No, sir, not last night. Just phone.” They often used Facebook and text messages, but Theo knew not to volunteer information. Just answer the question in front of you. He’d heard his mother say this to her clients many times. “Any sign of a break-in?” Mr. Boone asked. “None,” said Bolick. “Mrs. Finnemore was sound asleep in the downstairs bedroom, she heard nothing, and at some point she got up to check on April. That’s when she realized she was gone.” Theo looked at Mrs. Finnemore, who again shot him a fierce look. He knew the truth, and she knew he knew the truth. Trouble was, Theo couldn’t tell the truth because he’d made a promise to April. The truth was that Mrs. Finnemore had not been home for the past two nights. April had been living alone, terrified, with all the doors and”
― John Grisham, quote from The Abduction
“Everybody has an idea of himself which augments, aggravates, or modifies the actuality.”
― John Myers Myers, quote from Silverlock
“The souvenir hunters were prowling among them, carefully ripping insignia off tunics, slipping rings off fingers, or pistols off belts. There was Souvenirs himself, stepping gingerly from corpse to corpse, armed with his plyers and a dentist flashlight that he had had the forethought to purchase in Melbourne. I stood among the heaps of dead, they lay crumpled, useless, defunct. The vital force was fled. A bullet or a mortar fragment had torn a hole in these frail vessels, and the substance had leapt out. The mysteries of the universe had once inhabited these lulling lumps, had given each an identity, a way of walking, perhaps a special habit of address or a way with words or a knack of putting color on canvas. They had been so different then, now they were nothing, heaps of nothing. Can a bullet or a mortar fragment do this? Does this force, this mystery, I mean this soul, does this spill out on the ground along with the blood? No. It is somewhere, I know it. For this red and yellow lump I look down upon this instant was once a man. And the thing that energized him, the word that gave to airy nothing a local habitation and a name, the word from a higher word this cannot have been obliterated by a quarter inch of heated metal. The mystery of the universe has departed him and it is no good to say that the riddle is solved. The mystery is over because it has changed residences. The thing that shaped the flare of that nostril, that broadened that arm now bleeding, that wrought so fine that limply lying hand, that thing exists still and has still the power to flare that nostril, to bend that arm to clench that fist exactly as it did before. Because it is gone you cannot say it will not return; even though you may say it has never yet returned-you cannot say that it will not. It is blasphemy to say a bit of metal has destroyed life, just as it is presumptuous to say that because life has disappeared it has been destroyed. I stood among the heaps of the dead and I knew-no, I felt that death is only a sound we make to signify the Thing we do not know.”
― Robert Leckie, quote from Helmet for My Pillow
“What’s wrong with that is that it’s not how the real
world works. That’s why, sometimes, it’s good to be
flexible. When you don’t get what you want, you make
other plans.”
― Katie Klein, quote from Cross My Heart
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.