Quotes from The Little Stranger

Sarah Waters ·  466 pages

Rating: (31.1K votes)


“And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“I seem to have been cross, somehow, all the time when I was a girl. I was horrid... You're supposed to grow out of horridness, aren't you? I don't think I ever grew out of mine. Sometimes I think it's still inside me, like something nasty I swallowed that got stuck.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“We see what a punishing business it is, simply being alive.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“Yes, Emily Dickenson -- a rather exhausting poet, now I come to think of it. All that breathlessness and skipping about. What's wrong with nice, long lines and a jaunty rhythm?”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“The subliminal mind has many dark, unhappy corners, after all. Imagine something loosening itself from one of those corners. Let's call it a---a germ. And let's say conditions prove right for that germ to develop---to grow, like a child in the womb. What would this little stranger grow into? A sort of shadow-self, perhaps: a Caliban, a Mr Hyde. A creature motivated by all the nasty impulses and hungers the conscious mind had hoped to keep hidden away: things like envy and malice and frustration...”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger



“modern dances always seem to me so vulgar. So much hopping about; like a scene from a mental ward!”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“I'm like a weather-vane, I start twitching when the wind's on the turn.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“Her eyes were still closed, and in the darkness, in her dark dress and coat, she seemed an assemblage of angular fragments...”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“...I made what can only have been a few rather idiotic observations about the bricks.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


“...keeping their gimlet eyes on one's affairs...”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger



“He was just the sort of man to have faith in leeches. Leeches, and licorice, and cod-liver oil.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from The Little Stranger


About the author

Sarah Waters
Born place: in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales, The United Kingdom
Born date July 21, 1966
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Para mim, estar inocente significa não se ter nascido ou estar-se morto. Admito isto, estou pronto a reconhecer que há muitas espécies diferentes de culpa: uma culpa mais inocente do que a da maioria, e uma mais carregada, uma que transborda do sentimento da falta e outra que corre apenas gota a gota.”
― Stig Dagerman, quote from De dömdas ö


“The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history.”
― Gary Chapman, quote from The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts


“Was it too much? Tomorrow at this time, would they all be arrested? Would they all still be alive? When she left to go home to Joan that evening, would a cobrador fall into step behind her, down the long, stifling corridor? For doing too much? For doing too little? She wished now she hadn’t invited them into her chambers. Hadn’t forced the truth, and the lies, from them. She wished she could hide in happy ignorance. Go home to beer and burgers. The one question the Chief Superintendent hadn’t answered was who the defendant really was. And how the murder of Katie Evans was connected to all this. But she knew she’d find out”
― Louise Penny, quote from Glass Houses


“Before her escort could react, she sprinted out from their little pool of lantern-light into the darkness, her feet pounding the soft, treacherous clods of the field. The guards called after her for a while, but did not pursue, In a lost city, how could they chase down every lost soul who became a little more lost?”
― Frances Hardinge, quote from A Skinful of Shadows


“What am I but a little flesh, a little breath, and the thinking part that rules the whole?”
― Marcus Aurelius, quote from The Emperor's Handbook


Interesting books

Columbine
(52.9K)
Columbine
by Dave Cullen
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
(61.2K)
The Two Princesses o...
by Gail Carson Levine
My Man Jeeves
(28.9K)
My Man Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse
Special Topics in Calamity Physics
(35.5K)
Special Topics in Ca...
by Marisha Pessl
Ship of Destiny
(43.5K)
Ship of Destiny
by Robin Hobb
Death in Venice
(26.3K)
Death in Venice
by Thomas Mann

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.