“I know. You know I know. I know you know I know. We know Henry knows, and Henry knows we know it. We're a knowledgeable family.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“Give me a little peace.
A little? Why so modest? How about eternal peace? Now, there's a thought.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“He came down from the North to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“I've given up the looking glass; quicksilver has no sense of tact.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“Geoffrey: Why, you chivalric fool—as if the way one fell down mattered.
Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“I've snapped and plotted all my life. There's no other way to be a king, alive and fifty all at the same time. ”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“In a world where carpenters get resurrected, everything is possible.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“John: "Poor John. Who says poor John? Don't everybody sob at once! My God, if I went up in flames there's not a living soul who'd pee on me to put the fire out!"
Richard: "Let's strike a flint and see.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“Well, what family doesn't have its ups and downs?”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“I want Poetry and Power and the young men who create it.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn... but the troops were dazzled.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“I've plotted and schemed all my life. There is no other way to be a King, fifty and alive all at once.”
― James Goldman, quote from The Lion in Winter
“However,” as Ed notes, “apart from any one Scriptural interpretation, vile, inhuman spirits do roam the earth today. And when commanded to speak, the spirits’ reply is a grave one: My name is Legion: We Are One. It is also true that these spirits possess overwhelming powers, and work with a ferocious rage, malice, and spite against mankind. Oddly, the only protection man can summon against these negative forces is mention of the name of God—though more particularly Jesus—and the presentation of blessed objects. Otherwise, nothing will stay these bizarre spirit entities.”
― quote from The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren
“Thigh on thigh, chest on chest, we're so close, there's not even night between us.”
― Lara Zielin, quote from The Waiting Sky
“So how's the putrid pile of caca doing?”
― Kate Carlisle, quote from Homicide in Hardcover
“Even if it were possible to cast my horoscope in this one life, and to make an accurate prediction about my future, it would not be possible to 'show' it to me because as soon as I saw it my future would change by definition. This is why Werner Heisenberg's adaptation of the Hays Office—the so-called principle of uncertainty whereby the act of measuring something has the effect of altering the measurement—is of such importance. In my case the difference is often made by publicity. For example, and to boast of one of my few virtues, I used to derive pleasure from giving my time to bright young people who showed promise as writers and who asked for my help. Then some profile of me quoted someone who disclosed that I liked to do this. Then it became something widely said of me, whereupon it became almost impossible for me to go on doing it, because I started to receive far more requests than I could respond to, let alone satisfy. Perception modifies reality: when I abandoned the smoking habit of more than three decades I was given a supposedly helpful pill called Wellbutrin. But as soon as I discovered that this was the brand name for an antidepressant, I tossed the bottle away. There may be successful methods for overcoming the blues but for me they cannot include a capsule that says: 'Fool yourself into happiness, while pretending not to do so.' I should actually want my mind to be strong enough to circumvent such a trick.”
― Christopher Hitchens, quote from Hitch-22: A Memoir
“I press my back against the wall and feel the pressure of it against my whole body. I want to feel enclosed again, protected, safe as I was in the village. I wrap the blanket tightly around me, and I try to comfort myself by thinking about Tadeusz, but the loneliness that has opened up inside me is bigger than one person can fill.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True
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.