Quotes from The Manual of Detection

“The world is unkind to the shoeless and frolicsome.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“If you are not setting a trap, then you are probably walking into one. It is the mark of the master to do both at once.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Woe to he who checkmates his opponents at last, only to discover they have been playing cribbage.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“A train will bring you back to the place you came from, but it will not return you home.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“The coded message is a lifeless thing, mummified and entombed. To the would-be cryptologist we must offer the same advice we would give the grave-robber, the spelunker, and the sorcerer of legend: beware what you dig up; it is yours.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“I was to be buried inside my own creation, the better to keep its secrets. I will not tell you more, for your sake. But if you ask, I will answer.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“What frightens us is the possibility that it will leave forever, and never come back, and take us with it when it goes.
It is taking me now, and I am frightened and alive and very much awake.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“She was beautiful, in the quiet way that lonely, unnoticed people are beautiful to those who notice them”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“He was the only person awake, but he might as well have been alone and dreaming.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Answer questions with questions. If you are caught in a lie, lie again. You do not need to know the truth to trick another into speaking it.       U”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“All the world's a rube, and he who tries to prove otherwise will be the first to wake onstage, victim of our just ridicule.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“A hat is a snake is a lamp is a child is an insect is a clothesline hung with telephones.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“On Memory: Imagine a desk covered with papers. That is everything you are thinking about. Now imagine a stack of file drawers behind it. That is everything you know. The trick is to keep the desk and the file drawers as close to one another as possible, and the papers neatly stacked.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“The problem is not belonging to one or the other, Mr. Unwin—and there is always an Agency, always a Carnival to belong to. The problem is belonging for too long to either of them.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“It is not enough to say that you have had a hunch. Once written down, most such inklings reveal themselves for what they are: something to be tossed into a wishing well, not into a file.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“The expert detective’s pursuit will go unnoticed, but not because he is unremarkable. Rather, like the suspect’s shadow, he will appear as though he is meant to be there.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“This meeting went on for some time, with only the weather having anything to say, and the weather spoke only of itself.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“A blatant falsification, brought to dwell perpetually in the Agency archives, a stain in the shape of words!”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Lest details be mistaken for clues, note that Mr. Charles Unwin, lifetime resident of the city, rode his bicycle to work every day, even when it was raining.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Though inconspicuous by nature, as a bicyclist and an umbrellist Unwin was severely evident.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“...and in this draft the word "promotion" appeared always between quotation marks, for to let it stand without qualification would be to honor it with too much validity.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“An empty hat and raincoat floated at the center of the diagram in Unwin’s mind. Beside them was a dress filled with smoke. A pair of black birds with black hats fluttered above, while below lay two corpses, one in an office chair, one encased in glass. The diagram was a fairy tale, written by a forgetful old man with wild white hair, and it whirled like a record on a phonograph. The”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“There is no better way to understand your own motives and dispositions than by finding someone to act as your opposite.       T”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Though it isn't a terrible thing, having someone to talk to. Your average underclerk doesn't know a woman from a pile of paper clips.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

“Counting sheep, in fact, was his surest route to insomnia - by morning he could fill a whole pasture with a vast and clamorous flock.”
― Jedediah Berry, quote from The Manual of Detection

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Popular quotes

“The enemy of the moment is not as important as our own inner weakness. If this is not mended we are already defeated, though no foreign conqueror stands within our walls.”
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“People lived their lives, carelessly dropping information as if it were trash. The writer moved behind them like a ragpicker. She cleaned and separated their garbage, culled and collected it.”
― Nell Freudenberger, quote from The Dissident

“Chester watched it shining clearly above the picnic grounds. Soon an astronaut would step down off the LEM of Apollo 11 and plant his foot on what had once been hallowed ground. Science would intrude on what for all known time had been the sole domain of poets and dreamers alone: the moon. After that, well -- one thing was for certain: no matter what they found up there, it would never again be as easy for a father to tell his young son that the mysterious ball of light that appeared in the heavens each night was really just a hunk of old cheese floating in the sky. Nothing would ever be that simple again.”
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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.