“(...) ¿qué era el tiempo si nadie podía medirlo, si nada podía acusar su paso? El tiempo solo se mostraba en las hojas secas, en las heridas que cicatrizaban, en la carcoma que devoraba, en el óxido que se extendía, y en los corazones que se cansaban. Si nadie estaba allí para señalarlo, el tiempo no era nada, absolutamente nada.”
“He had learned from experience that what he succeeded in putting down on paper was only ever a pale reflection of what he had imagined, and so he had come to accept that this would only be half as good as the original, half as acceptable as the flawless, unachievable novel that had acted as a guide, and which he imagined pulsating mockingly behind each book like some ghostly presence.”
“Striving to achieve a dream is never a waste of time.”
“Before cruelly vilifying them from a great height, the mudslingers at newspapers and journals should bear in mind that all artistic endeavors were by and large a mixture of effort and imagination, the embodiment of a solitary endeavor, of a sometimes long-nurtured dream, when they were not a desperate bid to give life meaning.”
“Merrick belonged to that class of reader who was able to forget with amazing ease the hand moving the characters behind the scenes of the novel.”
“If Wells recognized any merit in [Henry] James, it was his undeniable talent for using very long sentences in order to say nothing at all. p. 516”
“[A] writer’s most powerful weapon, his true strength, was his intuition, and regardless of whether he had any talent, if the critics combined to discredit an author’s nose for things, he would be reduced to a fearful creature who took a mistakenly guarded, absurdly cautious approach to his work, which would end up stifling his latent genius.”
“Time could only be seen in the falling leaves, a wound that healed, a woodworm's tunneling, rust that spread, and hearts that grew weary. Without anyone to discern it, time was nothing, nothing at all.”
“(...) el tiempo nunca se pierde tratando de conseguir un sueño.”
“And now that Wells had heard him laugh, he wondered whether the so-called Elephant Man had not in fact been smiling at him from the moment he stepped into the room, a warm, friendly smile intended to sooth the discomfort his appearance produced in his guests, a smile no one would ever see.
As he left the room, he felt a tear roll down his cheek.”
“...the wrath of God pales beside that of man.”
“We are the authors of our own fate-we write it each day with every one of our actions.”
“Why had his mother gone to the trouble of bringing him into the world if the most exciting moment in his life was having been made lame by a bayonet?”
“Time is a river sweeping away all that is born towards the darkest shore.”
“Sometimes the best way to find out what we want is to choose what we do not want.”
“¿Se han preguntado alguna vez qué es lo que convierte en responsables a los hombres? Yo se lo diré: que solo tienen una oportunidad de hacer cada cosa. Si existieran máquinas que nos permitieran corregir hasta nuestros errores más estúpidos viviríamos en un mundo lleno de irresponsables.”
“It is a question of will, Mr. Wells," he said, striving to imbue his slurred voice with a tone of authority. "That's all.”
“Intelligence could not thrive where there was no change and no necessity for change.”
“Ultimately it was man's limited senses which established the boundaries of the world.”
“There is little more I can add short of dissecting the man, or going into intimate details such as the modest proportions and slight southeasterly curvature of his manhood.”
“...but there are stories that cannot begin at their beginning, and perhaps this is one of them.”
“From then on, he was convinced that the universe dazzled mankind with volcanic eruptions, but had its own secret way of communicating with the select few, people like Andrew who looked at reality as though it were a strip of wallpaper covering up something else.”
“Hinter jeder Erfindung steckt die Anstrengung eines Menschen, ein der Lösung eines Problems geweihtes Leben, um einen Mechanismus zu erfinden, der den Menschen überlebt und dann zu der Welt gehört, die ohne ihn weitergeht. Solange es Menschen gibt, die sich nicht damit begnügen, die Früchte der Bäume zu verzehren oder Trommeln zu schlagen, damit es regnet, die sich entschließen, ihre Intelligenz zu nutzen, um über die Rolle eines Parasiten im Garten Gottes hinauszuwachsen, so lange wird die Wissenschaft nicht sterben.”
“...for what was time if there was no one to measure it, if there was nothing to experience its passing? Time cold only be seen in the falling leaves, a wound that healed, a woodworm's tunneling, rust that spread, and hearts that grew weary. Without anyone to discern it, time was nothing, nothing at all.”
“Mientras haya hombres que no se contenten con comer las frutas de los árboles o con aporrear tambores suplicando lluvia, y decidan usar su inteligencia para rebasar el papel de meros parásitos de la obra de Dios, la ciencia nunca sucumbirá.”
“Wealth brings poverty in its wake, thought Andrew,”
“Somehow this literary genre, which most people condemned, acted as a sort of counterbalance to Charles's soul; it was the ballast that prevented him from lurching into the serious or melancholy, unlike Andrew, who had been unable to adopt his cousin's casual attitude to life, and to whom everything seemed so achingly profound, imbed with that absurd solemnity that the transience of of existence conferred upon even the smallest act.”
“It was the gaze of a person who yearns for something and refuses to believe it will never be hers, because hope is the only thing she has left.”
“The answer was obvious: the passage of time, which transformed the volatile present into that finished, unalterable painting called the past, a canvas man always executed blindly, with erratic brushstrokes that only made sense when one stepped far enough away from it to be able to admire it as a whole.”
“I close my eyes, back straight, face impassive. When I look, I will see someone capable and composed, a warrior and a leader all in one.”
“There was freedom in the pain. It meant he was still alive, still feeling, and he felt invincible. Whatever they did to him, however hard they fought, in the end, he would win.”
“Something inside me clicks. It's like I've spent my whole life fiddling with a complicated combination only to discover I was toying with the wrong lock.”
“Sheltering the women and the children played some part; Troy was sure of that. The women and children of Silo One had been gifted with a long sleep while the men stayed and took shifts. It removed the passion from the plans, forestalled the chance that the men might fight among themselves.”
“Firstly, bears are always hungry. So when you encounter the bear, don’t act like food.”
“Huh?”
“I read it in a book last summer, called—”
G held up a hand. “Don’t tell me the name! No time.”
“Right. As I was saying, bears are always hungry. Try not to act like food.”
“How does one act like food?”
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.