Quotes from The Long Goodbye

“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

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Popular quotes

“He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from In the Hand of the Goddess

“Friday morning, Kylie, Miranda, and Della, each carting suitcases, walked
the trail to meet up with their parents. They walked slowly, like condemned prisoners moving to their executions.
“I’m going to be peeing on a drug test stick every hour,” Della
muttered.
Miranda sighed. “I’m going to screw up at my competition and my
mom is going to give me up for adoption.”
“I’m going to a ghost hunt,” Kylie added. Both girls looked at her.
“Don’t ask.”
― C.C. Hunter, quote from Awake at Dawn

“Cuando uno deja de crecer empieza a morir.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from Junky

“We all stood in the kitchen talking over one another. Marna and I noticed at the same time when Zania made her way back to Kopano’s side and slipped her arm snuggly under his. And then they shared a look so tender that Marna turned and gave me a hand-over-her-heart “Aww!” face. She then wrapped her arms around Jay, and they stood there holding each other with their eyes closed. So much emotion filled the room, but one stood out above the rest. . . .

Love was in the air.

Among other things. Like lust. And the smell of turkey. A weird combo.”
― Wendy Higgins, quote from Sweet Reckoning

“Can you swim?" said Victor. One of the cavern's rotting pillars crashed down behind them. From the pit itself came a terrible wailing.
"Not very well," said Ginger.
"Me neither," he said. The commotion behind them was getting worse.
"Still," he said, taking her hand. "We could look on this as a great opportunity to improve really quickly.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Moving Pictures

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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.