“I guessed it was a migratory bird, too innocent to be wary of the spiders in the jungle grass. It worried be to think that we were a little like that bird”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Mosquito Coast
“And father said "I never wanted this. I'm sick of everyone pretending to be old Dan Beavers in his L. L. Bean moccasins, and his Dubbelwares, and his Japanese bucksaw -- all these fake frontiersmen with their chuck wagons full of Twinkies and Wonderbread and aerosol cheese spread. Get out the Duraflame log and the plastic cracker barrel, Dan, and let's talk self-sufficiency!”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Mosquito Coast
“Nature is crooked. I wanted right angles and straight lines. Ice! Oh, why do they all drip? You cut yourself opening a can of tuna fish and you die. One puncture in your foot and your life leaks out through your toe. What are they for, moose antlers? Get down on all fours and live. You're protected on your hands and knees. It's either that or wings.”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Mosquito Coast
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Mosquito Coast
“He used the word savages with affection, as if he liked them a little for it. In his nature was a respect for wildness. He saw it as a personal challenge, something that could be put right with an idea or a machine. He felt he had the answer to most problems, if anyone cared to listen.”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Mosquito Coast
Paul Theroux
Born place: in Medford, Massachusetts, The United States
Born date April 10, 1941
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“Because if you can just hold off the moment when you must confront reality, time stands still and you can keep pretending that life will continue as you´ve known it: that nothing-not even something as wonderful and as terrible as love-has broken your world beyond repair.”
― Ilsa J. Bick, quote from Drowning Instinct
“They're only trees. Only trees. Whose afraid of lonely trees?”
― Ruth Frances Long, quote from The Treachery of Beautiful Things
“The spittin’ image of--What was your dead friend’s name?”
“It is not to be spoken. He is dead, no? To say his name would not show respect. What is this to do with spit?”
“It’s just a saying. When someone or something looks just like something else, it’s called a spittin’ image. I don’t know why.”
“You do not know, but you say the words? The words from your mouth say who you are, Blue Eyes. I make a lie; I am an easop, storyteller. I speak hate; my heart burns with hate. The People do not make talk if they do not know the words. If it is spoken, it must be. A man is what he speaks. This is not so with the tosi tivo?”
Loretta shrugged and bit back a smile. “I seriously doubt I’ll become spit. It’s just something everyone says.”
“You will learn the meaning of this spit image, no? And say it to me. When we meet again?”
Loretta tightened her hand on the reins. “Yes, if we meet again.”
He glanced over at her, his expression suddenly solemn. “We walk backward in our footsteps, eh? Maybe you will walk forward a new way when we reach your wooden walls. You could be a little bit happy as my woman, no?”
Loretta fixed her eyes on the horizon ahead of them. They were only a day and a half’s ride from her home. A day and a half from real clothes, a chance to wash her hair, to eat her own kind of food. Yes, he had been kind to her. As reluctant as she was to admit it, she’d even come to like him a little. But not enough to belong to him. Never that.
“To be happy, I must be at my wooden walls,” she said shakily. “That’s my home and where my people are.”
There was only tonight and tomorrow night to get through, and then she’d be home. Suvate. It was almost finished.”
― Catherine Anderson, quote from Comanche Moon
“He tells them he and his wife are keeping the baby, because it’s the last link to their little girl or some cowpuckie like that.”
― Julia Spencer-Fleming, quote from In the Bleak Midwinter
“I do not believe in witches, but if I did, I'd swear you are one.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from Candle in the Darkness
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The Silent GirlBookQuoters 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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