“You're unusual. That's better than popular if you have some courage.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“No one weeps anymore, or if they do it is over small things, inconsequential moments that catch them unprepared. What is left that is heartbreaking? Not death: death is ordinary. What is heartbreaking is the sight of a single gull lifting effortlessly from a street lamp. Its wings unfurl like silk scarves against the mauve sky, and Marina hears the rustle of its feathers. What is heartbreaking is that there is still beauty in the world.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“Whatever is eating her brain consumes only the fresher memories, the unripe moments”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“is eating her brain consumes only the fresher memories, the unripe moments. Her distant past is preserved, better than preserved. Moments that occurred in Leningrad sixty-some years”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“He nods solemnly and repeats the stock response of the Housing Committee whenever they address the perpetual shortage of apartments in Leningrad. “Privacy is a conceit of degenerate societies.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“They don't teach this in school anymore?' Anya asks and clucks in dismay. 'When I was a girl, we made memory palaces to helps us memorize for our examinations. You chose an actual place, a palace works best, but any building with lots of rooms would do, and then you furnished it with whatever you wished to remember.... Bur once you had learned the rooms, in your imagination you could add anything you wish. So, when we needed to memorize the Law of God, for instance, we closed our eyes and put a question and answer in each room." Page 68-69”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“Before you either turn away in disgust or wink knowingly at one another, you should know that the artist insists that this is a picture about love. Filial love. The old man has been condemned by the Roman senate to die of hunger, and his daughter has come to his prison cell and offered her breast to feed him. This has nothing to do with with the decorous love or amorous passions one is more accustomed to seeing in a painting. It is raw and wretched and demeaning. In the end, we are physical bodies and every abstract notion about love sinks beneath this fact.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
“didn’t matter. The bond that had first brought them together as children existed whether they spoke of it or not, the bond of survivors. Here in America, a relentlessly foolish and optimistic country, what they knew drew them closer together. She was his country and he hers. They were inseparable. Until now. She is leaving him, not all at once, which would be painful enough, but in a wrenching succession of separations. One moment she is here, and then she is gone again, and each journey takes her a little farther from his reach. He cannot follow her, and he wonders where she goes when she leaves.”
― Debra Dean, quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad
Debra Dean
Born place: Seattle, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“Consider it this way: what would you say if a blond homecoming queen fell in love with a short Japanese businessman? He treats her cruelly, then goes home for three years, during which time she prays to his picture and turns down marriage from a young Kennedy. Then, when she learns he has remarried, she kills herself. Now I believe you should consider this girl to be a deranged idiot, correct? But because it's an Oriental who kills herself for a Westerner–ah!–you find it beautiful.”
― David Henry Hwang, quote from M. Butterfly
“No. I believe that dreams fuel life. And it's when you're chasing them that you're most alive. There's no reward in settling for the safety of status quo.”
― Kim Holden, quote from Franco
“We still, alas, cannot forestall it-
This dreadful ailment's heavy toll;
The spleen is what the English call it,
We call it simply, Russian soul.”
― Alexander Pushkin, quote from Evžen Oněgin
“We aren't filled with fear except by things that are bad; and not by them, either, as long as it is in our power to avoid them.”
― Epictetus, quote from Discourses and Selected Writings
“I think a relationship is like two stories,” I say at last, feeling my way cautiously through my thoughts. “Like…two open books, pressing together, and all the words mingle into one big, epic story. But if they stop mingling…” I lift my glass for emphasis. “Then they turn into two stories again. And that’s when it’s over.” I clap my hands together, spilling champagne. “The books shut. The End.”
― Sophie Kinsella, quote from Surprise Me
The Lost Saint
Liar's Poker
Briar Rose
Death: The High Cost...
The Last Time They M...
The Diamond ThroneBookQuoters 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.
