“When it comes to my memory there are three categories: things I want to forget, things I can't forget, and things I'd forgotten until I remember them.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“People don't know that they do that to people when they do the things they shouldn't. Hurtful things are roots,they spread ,branch out, creep under the surface touching other parts of the lives of those they hurt. It's never one mistake, it's never one moment, it becomes a series of moments, each moment growing roots and spurting in different directions. And over time, they become muddled like an old twisted tree, strangling itself and tying itself up in knots.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“When a member of the family leaves or dies, it changes the dynamics of a family. People move and shift, take up places they either wanted to have or are forced into roles they never wanted. It happens without anybody noticing, but it's shifting all the time.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“My mother says that I have a knack for remembering what others forget. Sometimes it's a curse; nobody likes it when there's somebody to remember what they've tried so hard to bury.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe. You would think it would be an innate human instinct but no, i inhale and forget to exhale and so I find my body rigid, all tensed up, heart pounding , chest tight with an anxious head wondering what's wrong.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“Some things are better left the way they are”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“In this place, fun and laughing makes them angry. We are not here to be leaders, we are here to serve.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“When a member of the family leaves or dies, it changes the dynamics of a family. People move and shift, take up places they either wanted to have or are forced into roles they never wanted. It happens without anybody noticing, but it’s shifting all the time.”
― Cecelia Ahern, quote from The Marble Collector
“It is often said that what most immediately sets English apart from other languages is the richness of its vocabulary. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (184,000) and far more than in French (a mere 100,000). The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. The French, for instance, cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman, between “I wrote” and “I have written.” The Spanish cannot differentiate a chairman from a president, and the Italians have no equivalent of wishful thinking. In Russia there are no native words for efficiency, challenge, engagement ring, have fun, or take care [all cited in The New York Times, June 18, 1989]. English, as Charlton Laird has noted, is the only language that has, or needs, books of synonyms like Roget’s Thesaurus. “Most speakers of other languages are not aware that such books exist” [The Miracle of Language, page 54]. On the other hand, other languages have facilities we lack. Both French and German can distinguish between knowledge that results from recognition (respectively connaître and kennen) and knowledge that results from understanding (savoir and wissen). Portuguese has words that differentiate between an interior angle and an exterior one. All the Romance languages can distinguish between something that leaks into and something that leaks out of. The Italians even have a word for the mark left on a table by a moist glass (culacino) while the Gaelic speakers of Scotland, not to be outdone, have a word for the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whiskey. (Wouldn’t they just?) It’s sgriob. And we have nothing in English to match the Danish hygge (meaning “instantly satisfying and cozy”), the French sang-froid, the Russian glasnost, or the Spanish macho, so we must borrow the term from them or do without the sentiment. At the same time, some languages have words that we may be pleased to do without. The existence in German of a word like schadenfreude (taking delight in the misfortune of others) perhaps tells us as much about Teutonic sensitivity as it does about their neologistic versatility. Much the same could be said about the curious and monumentally unpronounceable Highland Scottish word sgiomlaireachd, which means “the habit of dropping in at mealtimes.” That surely conveys a world of information about the hazards of Highland life—not to mention the hazards of Highland orthography. Of”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
“Wealth means nothing at all if you do not know, to the last penny, what your fortune is. You might as well be poor if you do not know what you have.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Other Queen
“You’re not even supposed to be allowed to touch me yet—not until the first week is up. The contract says so.” “You need to read the fine print, Lilenta. I’m not allowed to touch you in a sexual way and I’m not allowed to claim you. But you’re my bride and this is our holding week. According to the Kindred rules, I’m well within my rights to hold you and keep you safe.” “Right,” Liv spat. “And right now I feel about as safe as a lamb being held by a wolf. You can’t tell me this isn’t sexual, you bastard.” “It wouldn’t be if you’d stop struggling.” He sounded at the very end of his patience. “If you knew how long I’ve been waiting for you and how badly I want to claim you—” “Well you can forget about that because it’s never going to happen,” Liv snarled. “And if you think for one minute that you can get away with molesting me—” “All I can think about right now is how good you feel against me and how badly I want to be inside you.” His deep voice seemed to pierce her entire body. “If you’d just hold still and stop wigglin’ all over the damn place maybe we could both relax.” His”
― Evangeline Anderson, quote from Claimed
“I’m still a doughnut, okay?” I said. “I want to be a bun. I really do. But I’m still a doughnut.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from After You
“She's a good person to hug, because her body fills up all the empty spaces.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Light on Snow
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.