Quotes from The Man With the Golden Arm

“There's people in hell who want ice water.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-coloured walls...”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“If Jesus Christ treated me like you do, I’d drive in the nails myself.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“Then the wooden benches along the walls, where so many outcasts had slept, would be lit by a sort of slow, clocked lightning til the bulb steadied and fastened its tiny feral fury upon the center of the room like a single sullen and manic eye. To burn on there with a steady hate. Til morning wearied and dimmed it away to nothing more than some sort of little old lost gray child of a district-station moon, all its hatred spent.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“For way down there, in a shot glass's false bottom, everything was bound to turn out fine after all.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“I couldn't buy the lice off a sick cat," the cabbie answered from the very depths of self-deprecation.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

“Heroin got the drive awright-but there’s not a tingle to a ton-you got to get M to get the tingle-tingle.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm

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Popular quotes

“We all, sometimes, leave each other there under the skies, and we never understand why.”
― Truman Capote, quote from Music for Chameleons

“Die Wahrheit ist, daß Marty seinen Vater Herman Coslaw ein wenig nervös macht. Herman lebt in einer Welt äußerst aktiver Kinder, Kinder, die rennen und toben und Basebälle wegschmettern und Staffelwettschwimmen veranstalten. Und während er diese sportlichen Aktivitäten überwacht, schaut er gelegentlich auf und sieht Marty irgendwo in der Nähe in seinem Rollstuhl sitzen und den anderen Kindern zuschauen. Das hatte Herman schon immer nervös gemacht.”
― Stephen King, quote from Cycle of the Werewolf

“But in all these tales the dog is the innocent shooting star we all wish upon until it burns up, aging fast and disappearing behind our jagged horizons. Each dog marks a section of our lives, and in the end, we feed them to the dark, burying them there while we carry on.”
― Toby Barlow, quote from Sharp Teeth

“Life is not flawless, no matter how close one may obtain excellence. All we can truly promise each other is to love and honor and respect and communicate.”
― Sharon Lathan, quote from Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley

“If he is so evil, why are we standing here watching him?" Sabrina said.
"Cause I'm trying to get up the courage to go over and asking for an autograph," Puck said.”
― Michael Buckley, quote from Tales From the Hood

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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.