“When I was small and easily wounded books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Even still, we run. We have not reached our average of 57.92 years without knowing that you run through it, and it hurts and you run through it some more, and if it hurts worse, you run through it even more, and when you finish, you will have broken through. In the end, when you are done, and stretching, and your heartbeat slows, and your sweat dries, if you've run through the hard part, you will remember no pain.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...no genius, I am a girl who knows too much to know anything at all...”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“we need a mass of ancestors at our backs as ballast. Sometimes, we feel it's impossible to push into the future without such a weight behind us, without such heaviness to keep us steady, even if it is imaginary. And the more frightening the future is, the more complicated it seems to be, the more we steady ourselves with the past.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...right now, right now, I am strange. It is strange. This life is strange. For now, only for now, I am happy.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“It was somehow clear, even then, that the monster had been lonely. The folds above its eye made the old face look wistful, and it emanated such a strong sense of solitude that each human standing in the park that day felt miles from the others, though we were shoulder-to-shoulder, touching.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Then, when we had done so, we put our hands upon the freezing cold monster, our monster. And this is what we felt: vertigo, an icicle through our strong hearts, our long-lost childhoods. Sunshine in a field and crickets and the sweet tealeaf stink of a new ball mitt and a rock glinting with mica and a chaw of bubblegum wrapping in sweet sweet tendrils down our throats and the warm breeze up our shorts and the low vibrato of lake loons and the sun and the sun and the warm sun and this is what we felt; the sun.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“A man living in a place that doesn't change doesn't expect it ever will.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...all I'm saying is that worrying about it isn't going to fix anything. The only thing we can do is keep on with our own small thing and try hard to be good and to make life better, and know that if it all ends tomorrow that we were at least happy.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“The writing seemed like the books that held it; crumbly and antique and bearing the stink of centuries. Still, it was compelling. His voice was smooth and kind, and once in a while an observation that would ring so true it vibrated like flicked crystal.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“And this was what we felt: vertigo, an icicle through our strong hearts, our long-lost childhoods. Sunshine in a field and crickets and the sweet tealeaf stink of a new ball mitt and a rock glinting with mica and a chaw of bubblegum wrapping its sweet tendrils down our throats and the warm breeze up our shorts and the low vibrato of lake loons and the sun and the sun and the warm sun and this is what we felt; the sun.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“In the far reaches of the county, cottages were found with skeletons enlaced in the beds, the bones of the baby in the kettle.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“And as I walked, I believed myself to be an Adam setting foot in a new Eden, sinless and wild-eyed, my sinews still stiff with creation.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Publilius Syrus come to me: Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“...sick, my brothers are sending me home. This place infects me. Templeton my smooth little pill... such images I have. Such voices, that high voice, the little girl's so naughty, talking to me, all the time now. How I hate her... the train is empty, Albany a small, spangled fish... this train is all brown velvet... the train slows, I am in Templeton, oh. Templeton, Templeton, the train says, slowing down. The lake, the blue, is an embrace.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Little Sally is beheading daisies on the drive... couldn't be more eloquent if she could speak...”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“As I touched the beast I remembered how, even on that long-ago night, I could feel a tremendous thing moving in the depths below me, something vast and white and singing.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“When I was small and easily wounded, books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book, they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight; the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home. So,”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“My Templeton is to Cooperstown as a shadow is to the tree that spawned it; an outline that takes texture from the ground it falls on.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“But it’s not just me, you know. The whole world’s sad,” I said. “It’s like a virus. It’s going to end badly. Glaciers melting, ozone depleted. Terrorists blowing up buildings, nuclear rods infecting the aqueducts. Influenza hopping from the pigeons to the humans, killing millions. Billions. People rotting in the street. The sun bursting open, shattering us eight minutes later. If not that, starvation. Cannibalism. Freakish mutated babies with eyeballs in their navels. It’s a terrible place to bring a child into,” I said. “This world. It is terrible. Just terrible.” I”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Now, don't sigh for envy at my week-end; I am sure it is to be dull, my dear, and you know my horrible shyness and how I loathe such things. If only I had your vivacity and beauty! Alas, what we love in others does not always suit ourselves. I shall get through the weekend by wishing you in my place.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“That's how it went, the gentle ones died quiet while the mean ones thrived. Sickened me unto death all my life.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Even still, we run. We have not reached our average of 57.92 years without knowing that you run through it, and it hurts worse, you run through it even more, and when you finish, you will have broken through. In the end, when you are done, and stretching, and your heartbeat slows, and your sweat dries, if you've run through the hard part, you will remember no pain.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“When I was small and easily wounded, books were my carapace. If I were recalled to my hurts in the middle of a book, they somehow mattered less. My corporeal life was slight; the dazzling one in my head was what really mattered. Returning to books was coming home.”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
“Until I talked to Primus Dwyer, I wouldn’t decide anything on the Lump,”
― Lauren Groff, quote from The Monsters of Templeton
Lauren Groff
Born place: in Cooperstown, New York, The United States
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“Good morrow, High Lord Weiramon, and all you other High Lords and Ladies. I'm a gambler, a farmboy, and I'm here to take command of your bloody army! The bloody lord Dragon Reborn will be with us as soon as he flaming takes care of one bloody little matter!”
― Robert Jordan, quote from The Fires of Heaven
“But I should be false in the earliest sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed the opinion. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence.”
― Frederick Douglass, quote from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“Gabriel pulled her over his body to lie on the bed beside him. His kisses pressed her down into the oblivion of the mattress as her hands explored his chest, his shoulders, his face.
"I want to lay my kill at your feet," he said, more growl than words, and held her tight by her hair as he marked her neck with his teeth.
She writhed against him. She wanted to bite him, she wanted to rip the flesh from his back, but most terrible of all, she didn't want him to stop. Her back arched, her body shattered, she howled.”
― Annette Curtis Klause, quote from Blood and Chocolate
“(...) Ale, między nami, nie rób przy niej tego, co ostatnim razem, podczas kolacji.
- Idzie ci o to, że rzuciłem widelcem w szczura?
- Nie. Idzie mi o to, że trafiłeś, chociaż było ciemno.
- Myślałem, że to będzie zabawne.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from The Last Wish
“He was completely detached from every thing except the story he was writing and he was living in it as he built it. The difficult parts he had dreaded he now faced one after another and as he did the people, the country, the days and the nights, and the weather were all there as he wrote. He went on working and he felt as tired as if he had spent the night crossing the broken volcanic desert and the sun had caught him and the others with the dry gray lakes still ahead. He could feel the weight of the heavy double-barreled rifle carried over his shoulder, his hand on the muzzle, and he tasted the pebble in his mouth. Across the shimmer of the dry lakes he could see the distant blue of the escarpment. Ahead of him there was no one, and behind was the long line of porters who knew that they had reached this point three hours too late.
It was not him, of course, who had stood there that morning, nor had he even worn the patched corduroy jacket faded almost white now, the armpits rotted through by sweat, that he took off then and handed to his Kamba servant and brother who shared with him the guilt and knowledge of the delay, watching him smell the sour, vinegary smell and shake his head in disgust and then grin as he swung the jacket over his black shoulder holding it by the sleeves as they started off across the dry-baked gray, the gun muzzles in their right hands, the barrels balanced on their shoulders, the heavy stocks pointing back toward the line of porters.
It was not him, but as he wrote it was and when someone read it, finally, it would be whoever read it and what they found when they should reach the escarpment, if they reached it, and he would make them reach its base by noon of that day; then whoever read it would find what there was there and have it always.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from The Garden of Eden
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Narcissus in ChainsBookQuoters 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.
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