Quotes from The Last Four Things

Paul Hoffman ·  422 pages

Rating: (6.8K votes)


“...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’
‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (...)
‘And?’
‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things



“We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“It's pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things



“Whatever discoveries have been made in the land of self-delusion, many undiscovered regions remain to be explored.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Bůh není nějaký kriminálník, který podvádí v kartách. Chce, abychom se jeho zákony řídili svobodně, z vlastní vůle. Ani Bůh nedokáže nakreslit kulatý čtverec. Bůh je osamělý - chce, aby si lidé poslušnost sami zvolili, a ne aby k ní byli přinuceni strachem.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Lidské srdce je malé, touží ale po velkých věcech. Nestačí ani zasytit psa, ale celý svět pro něj není dost velký.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“...and what is a good weapon but a good idea made murderous flesh?”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things



“The search for knowledge and the discovery of a great weapon are virtually one and the same. War is the father of everything.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Nikdy nepřerušuj nepřítele, když se dopouští omylu.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


“Nemá smysl zlobit se na někoho za to, že je sám sebou a stará se o vlastní zájmy.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things


About the author

Paul Hoffman
Born place: The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“You'll be my wife," he said inexorably.
"You want to own me!" she accused, trying to crawl away from him.
"Yes." He flung her down on the bed and flattened his weight on her. As he spoke, his hot breath fanned
her mouth and chin. "Yes. I want other people to look at you and know you're mine. I want you to take
my name and my money. I want you to
live with me. I want to be inside you . . . part of your thoughts . . . your body . . . all of you. I want you to
trust me. I want to give you whatever elusive, impossible, goddamned mysterious thing it is you need in
order to be happy. Does that frighten
you? Well, it frightens the hell out of me. Don't you think I'd stop feeling this way if I could? It's not as if
you're the easiest woman in the world!!”
― Lisa Kleypas, quote from Then Came You


“the deaf man interrupted. “Let the boys”
― Franklin W. Dixon, quote from The Tower Treasure


“The facts are as follows. The total amount of DNA in different organisms is very variable, and the variation does not make obvious sense in terms of phylogeny. This is the so-called ‘C-value paradox’. ‘It seems totally implausible that the number of radically different genes needed in a salamander is 20 times that found in a man’ (Orgel & Crick 1980). It is equally implausible that salamanders on the West side of North America should need many times more DNA than congeneric salamanders on the East side.”
― Richard Dawkins, quote from The Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene


“But it could have been worse. He did have a pass to shop for food at the Army–Air Force Exchange Service—otherwise known as the PX at nearby Greenham Commons Air Base—so at least they’d have proper hot dogs, and brands that resembled the ones he bought at the Giant at home in Maryland.”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Red Rabbit


“My needs were simple I didn't bother much with themes or felicitous phrases and skipped fine descriptions of weather, landscapes and interiors. I wanted characters I could believe in, and I wanted to be made curious about what was to happen to them. Generally, I preferred people to be falling in and out of love, but I didn't mind so much if they tried their hand at something else. It was vulgar to want it, but I liked someone to say 'Marry me' by the end.”
― Ian McEwan, quote from Sweet Tooth


Interesting books

The Last Little Blue Envelope
(21.1K)
The Last Little Blue...
by Maureen Johnson
Imagine: How Creativity Works
(25.8K)
Imagine: How Creativ...
by Jonah Lehrer
Goodbye Tsugumi
(6.7K)
Goodbye Tsugumi
by Banana Yoshimoto
The Orphan Queen
(11.7K)
The Orphan Queen
by Jodi Meadows
Thanks for the Trouble
(3.2K)
Thanks for the Troub...
by Tommy Wallach
Judas Unchained
(26K)
Judas Unchained
by Peter F. Hamilton

About BookQuoters

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.