Quotes from The Meaning of Night

Michael Cox ·  703 pages

Rating: (8.2K votes)


“After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“The summer passed quietly. I busied myself as best I could, reading a good deal.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“It is trite to speak of a broken heart. Hearts are not broken; they continue to beat, the blood still courses, even in the bitter after-days of betrayal. but something is broken when pain beyond words is suffered; some connection that formerly existed with light and hope and bright mornings is severed, and can never be restored.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“But greater than all these delights would be the possession of this wondrous library for my own use and pleasure. What more could my bibliophile's soul ask for? Here were marvels without end, treasures beyond knowing. You have seen the worst of me in these confessions. Here, then, let me throw into the opposite side of the balance, what I truly believe is the best of me: my devotion to the mental life, to those divine faculties of intellect and imagination which, when exercised to the utmost, can make gods of us all.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“The boundaries of this world are forever shifting – from day to night, joy to sorrow, love to hate, and from life itself to death; and who can say at what moment we may suddenly cross over the border, from one state of existence to another, like heat applied to some flammable substance? I have been given my own ever-changing margins, across which I move, continually and hungrily, like a migrating animal. Now civilized, now untamed; now responsive to decency and human concern, now viciously attuned to the darkest of desires.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night



“But who ever heeds the voice of reason when love whispers, softly persuasive, in the other ear?”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“I long for sleep, and for soft English rain. But they do not come.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“Trust, but be careful in whom.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“I think much of her - I mean my mother - and of how alike we were, and how we were both destroyed by believing it was in our own hands to punish those who had done wrong to us.”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night


“Truly divine faculties of intellect and imagination can make gods of us all”
― Michael Cox, quote from The Meaning of Night



About the author

Michael Cox
Born place: in Finedon, Northamptonshire, The United Kingdom
Born date October 25, 1948
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It’s good to have you back, David. We missed you while you were away.”
― Max Lucado, quote from Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible


“The universe was filled with secrets, and he understood now that one of the biggest was that no one needed to know them all.”
― quote from Monster


“Her lips are full and red and tend to wetness and do not ask but rather demand, in a pout of liquid silk, to be kissed. I kiss them often, I admit it, it is what I do, I am a kisser, and a kiss with Lenore is, if I may indulge a bit for a moment here, not so much a kiss as it is a dislocation, a removal and rude transportation of essence from self to lip, so that it is not so much two human bodies coming together and doing the usual things with their lips as it is two sets of lips spawned together and joined in kind from the beginning of post-Scarsdale time, achieving full ontological status only in subsequent union and trailing behind and below them, as they join and become whole, two now utterly superfluous fleshly bodies, drooping outward and downward from the kiss like the tired stems of overblossomed flora, trailing shoes on the ground, husks.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from The Broom of the System


“Honey, I don't understand that story. What does it mean?"
"It means stick with the dog you know, Auntie Jean", Max told her. "Stick with the dog you know.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire


“She'd cook like an angel and fuck like a whore”
― Val McDermid, quote from Cross and Burn


Interesting books

Souls Unfractured
(13.6K)
Souls Unfractured
by Tillie Cole
Interesting Times: The Play
(19.8K)
My Ishmael
(8.4K)
My Ishmael
by Daniel Quinn
Ghostgirl
(15.7K)
Ghostgirl
by Tonya Hurley
Stand on Zanzibar
(12.4K)
Stand on Zanzibar
by John Brunner
The Book of Luke
(13.1K)
The Book of Luke
by Jenny O'Connell

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.