“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
“He'd given her his vow: to take care of her, to keep her from hurt or pain, from wanting for anything. Her leaving didn't negate his promises; they weren't conditional.”
― Melissa Marr, quote from Ink Exchange
“perhaps because this time not fear but love made him read.”
― Cornelia Funke, quote from Inkdeath
“I am having a hallucination now, I don't need drugs for that.”
― Thomas Pynchon, quote from The Crying of Lot 49
“As I lay on my back, I chanced to open my eyes and perceived a bright spot at the extremity of the tube, 3,000 feet long, transformed now into a gigantic telescope. (p. 83)”
― Jules Verne, quote from Journey to the Center of the Earth
“He would have been perfectly at home living in a cave and dragging his woman around by the hair when he wasn't busy throwing rocks at his enemies. He was the sort of man whose response is only completely predictable when he is confronted with superior strength and authority. Confrontations of this kind didn't happen often, but when they did, he bowed to the superior force almost at once. Although he did not know it, it was this characteristic which had kept him from simply running away from the Flying Corson Brothers in the first place. In men like Ace Merrill, the only urge stronger than the urge to dominate is the need to roll over and humbly expose the undefended neck when the real leader of the pack puts in an appearance.”
― Stephen King, quote from Needful Things
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.