“Sometimes you don't even know what you want until you find out you can't have it.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye
“Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me. A mother, after all, is your entry into the world. She is the shell in which you divide and become a life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without sky: unimaginable.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye
“One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye
“The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye
“In the months that followed my mother's death, I managed to look like a normal person. I walked the street; I answered my phone; I brushed my teeth; most of the time. But I was not OK. I was in grief. Nothing seemed important. Daily tasks were exhausting. Dishes piled in the sink, knives crusted with strawberry jam. At one point I did not wash my hair for ten days. I felt that I had abruptly arrived at a terrible, insistent truth about the impermanence of everyday.”
― Meghan O'Rourke, quote from The Long Goodbye
“He knew that if Michelle entered into the walls of the Vatican, she’d corrupt every single clergyman within, causing them to forsake their vows in trade for a few moments with her. With one glance men would happily follow her to the bowels of hell and swim across the lake of fire to get to her.”
― Travis Luedke, quote from The Nightlife: Las Vegas
“The correctness of a decision can’t be judged from the outcome. Nevertheless, that's how people assess it. A good decision is one that’s optimal at the time it’s made, when the future is by definition unknown. Thus, correct decisions are often unsuccessful, and vice versa.”
― Howard Marks, quote from The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor
“He tried not to think, not to understand: could there be any understanding of this? This had come, had crushed, and was roaring. If you thought about it--you would throw yourself through a hole in the ice.
In his soul something bellowed piteously like a bullock under the knife in the slaughterhouse.”
― Andrei Bely, quote from Petersburg
“I am not an exhibitionist anymore. I don't need to show of my beautiful body to anyone. I'm sexy and I know it, and I don't give a shit if anyone else knows it. ”
― Travis Luedke, quote from Blood Slave
“cat came toward him, paced away, then returned. Its dark face was as fierce as a Maori. The fur on its spine was spiked like a Mohawk warrior. Pike”
― Robert Crais, quote from Taken
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.