“Knowledge can be like the skin on the surface of the water in a pond, or it can go all the way down to the mud. It can be the tiny tip of the iceberg or the whole hundred percent.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“Salim,' She said, as if he were in the room. 'I'll have your guts for garters.' I has never heard this before and wondered what garters were. Kat told me later that they are what women used to wear around their thighs to keep their stockings up and they were elasticated. I do not think guts would be a tidy way of doing this.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“Kat had her arms folded and her hair was tied in what girls call a topknot. Her skinny, bony face jutted out. With her tilted chin and dark eyebrows she seemed sharper, somehow, as if she was more in focus than other people round her, or more real. You couldn't help noticing her, whether you were looking for her or not.
Maybe that's what being pretty meant, I thought. ”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“Lips up, loads of teeth showing = very amused, happy. Lips up, no teeth showing = slightly amused, pleased. Lips pressed together, slightly turned down = not amused, slightly cross, or else puzzled (hard to tell which). Lips pressed together, eyes scrunched up at the same time = very displeased, angry. Lips round like an O and eyes wide open = startled, surprised.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“The difference between laughing your head off and shouting your head off is that with one you are happy and with the other you are angry.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“Everyone laughed their heads off, which is not what literally happened but I like the idea of laughing heads becoming detached from bodies through extreme hilarity, so it was a good way to describe things.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“The world's most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, said that once you have eliminated all the possibilities, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.”
― Siobhan Dowd, quote from The London Eye Mystery
“Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, quote from Deathless
“ 64. Surprising and Distressing Things
While one is cleaning a decorative comb, something catches in the teeth and the comb breaks.
A carriage overturns. One would have imagined that such a solid, bulky object would remain forever on its wheels. It all seems like a dream -- astonishing and senseless.
A child or grown-up blurts out something that is bound to make people uncomfortable.
All night long one has been waiting for a man who one thought was sure to arrive. At dawn, just when one has forgotten about him for a moment and dozed off, a crow caws loudly. One wakes up with a start and sees that it is daytime -- most astonishing.
One of the bowmen in an archery contest stands trembling for a long time before shooting; when finally he does release his arrow, it goes in the wrong direction.”
― Sei Shōnagon, quote from The Pillow Book
“Carmen sat up when she heard a familiar trill from her computer. It was an instant message from Bee.
Beezy3: Packing. Do you have my purple sock with the heart on the ankle?
Carmabelle: No. Like I'd wear your socks.
Carmen looked from her computer screen down to her feet. To her dismay, her socks were two faintly different shades of purple. She rotated her foot to get a view of her anklebone.
Carmabelle: Ahem. Might possibly have sock.”
― Ann Brashares, quote from The Second Summer of the Sisterhood
“For the moment, I’m just Daire—a girl straddling two bloodlines. One I was given—one I must earn.”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Fated
“You come from a race that spends more time murdering your own kind than do all the immortals put together, yet you insist you are better than us.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Wolf-Speaker
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.