“The essence of wisdom is to know when to be doing, and when it's useless even to try”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“A new moon lay on its back, and stars were out. Here, away from lights and sounds of town or village, the night was deep, the black sky stretching, fathomless, away among the spheres to some unimaginable world where gods walked, and suns and moons showered down like petals falling. Some power there is that draws men's eyes and hearts up and outward, beyond the heavy clay that fastens them to earth. Music can take them, and the moon's light, and, I suppose, love, though I had not known it then, except in worship.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“It is easier to call the storm from the empty sky than to manipulate the heart of a man; and soon, if my bones did not lie to me, I should be needing all the power I could muster, to pit against a woman; and this is harder to do than anything concerning men, as air is harder to see than a mountain.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“Not as others had wanted to learn, for power or excitement, or for the prosecution of some enmity or private greed; but because he had seen, darkly with a child's eyes, how the gods move with the winds and speak with the sea and sleep in the gentle herbs; and how God himself is in the sum of all that is on the face of the lovely earth.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“Time spent looking back in anger is time wasted.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“Like the first breath of living wind to the sailor becalmed and starving, I felt hope stir.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“This is the way of love, I find; one longs so fervently for the beloved to achieve the best ends that he is spared nothing.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“In all that ever mattered, you are unchanged. Old? Yes, we must all grow old. Age is nothing but the sum of life. And you are alive, and back with me here. By the great God of heaven, I have you back with me. What should I fear now?”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“Time spent looking back in anger is time wasted”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment
“I want people to see and hear the things I see and hear. And I want them to remember how it was when they were children. I don't want them to grow up entirely.
Every adult is the creation of a child. My own signature, that identifying scrawl required by parcel postmen and valued by a handful of comic-book fans, that signature was devised by a thirteen-year-old boy who thought I'd want to seem important one day. I am stuck with it. My life is the result of that boy's dreams and limitations, and of the company that boy kept a long time ago, back when things could still happen for the first time.”
― Chris Fuhrman, quote from The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
“This habit starts awfully early. Social psychologist Marilynn Brewer, who has been studying the nature of stereotypes for many years, once reported that her daughter returned from kindergarten complaining that “boys are crybabies.”25 The child’s evidence was that she had seen two boys crying on their first day away from home. Brewer, ever the scientist, asked whether there hadn’t also been little girls who cried. “Oh yes,” said her daughter. “But only some girls cry. I didn’t cry.” Brewer’s little girl was already dividing the world, as everyone does, into us and them. Us is the most fundamental social category in the brain’s organizing system, and it’s hardwired.”
― Carol Tavris, quote from Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
“La máxima desviación de una operación precedente pasara a ser el punto inicial de la operación siguiente.”
― Eliyahu M. Goldratt, quote from The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
“There were rules that told him he was supposed to wait three days before he called her again after tonight, and that he was supposed to seem uninterested to make her want him more, but he had never liked playing games that involved manipulating how people felt. Feelings were confusing enough without people toying with them to make them fit their own needs.”
― Carrie Hope Fletcher, quote from On the Other Side
“If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die.”
― Ishmael Beah, quote from A Long Way Gone
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.