“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
“Nathaniel smiled a mischievous-looking grin. “Now that we have already…come to know each other so intimately…it is simply a matter of speaking it into being. Anytime within the next seventy-two hours, I can command your body to conceive, and it will be so.” Jocelyn abruptly sat up, turned to face him squarely, and gulped, her eyes wide with surprise. “You have that kind of power…over me? Over my body? With just your words?”
― Tessa Dawn, quote from Blood Destiny
“We stared at the odd garment and wondered what it was for. 'What is it?' asked Larry at length. 'It's a bathing costume, of course,' said Mother. 'What on earth did you think it was?' 'It looks like a badly skinned whale,' said Larry, peering at it closely.”
― Gerald Durrell, quote from My Family and Other Animals
“There was a time in Africa the people could fly. Mauma told me this one night when I was ten years old. She said, “Handful, your granny-mauma saw it for herself. She say they flew over trees and clouds. She say they flew like blackbirds. When we came here, we left that magic behind.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, quote from The Invention of Wings
“The worst is missing them, you know? And knowing they won’t be back again. Just knowing that. Sometimes you forget and it’s as though they’re on vacation or something and you think, gee, I wish they’d call. You miss them. You forget they’re really gone. You forget the past six months even happened. Isn’t that weird? Isn’t that crazy? Then you catch yourself . . . and it’s real again.”
― Jack Ketchum, quote from The Girl Next Door
“You'll find that marriage is a good short cut to the truth. No, not quite that. A way of doubling back to the truth. Another thing you'll find is that the years of illusion aren't those of adolescence, as the grown-ups try to tell us; they're the ones immediately after it, say the middle twenties, the false maturity if you like, when you first get thoroughly embroiled in things and lose your head. Your age, by the way, Jim. That's when you first realize that sex is important to other people besides yourself. A discovery like that can't help knocking you off balance for a time.”
― Kingsley Amis, quote from Lucky Jim
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.