“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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“And Moose heard her happiness then—Oh, the joy that came of dispensing happiness to others, of entering happiness’s interlocking circuitry! Yet even now Moose felt the persistence of whatever worry he’d heard in Ellen’s voice before the happiness his remark had occasioned, and no sooner was the phone back in its cradle than he was felled by a crash of despair on his sister’s behalf. We’re all alone, he thought, crumpling back onto the fragment of living room couch that wasn’t draped in maps of Rockford. We are all alone.”
― Jennifer Egan, quote from Look at Me
“More sheltering is rarely an antidote for too much in the first place.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Lord of the White Hell, Book 1
“The most important tool ultimately is the person and his or her makeup, and yet it seems to get the least amount of attention and work.”
― Henry Cloud, quote from Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality
“Identify your strengths, and then—this is important—major in them. Take a few irons out of the fire so this one can get hot. Failing to focus on our strengths may prevent us from accomplishing the unique tasks God has called us to do. A lighthouse keeper who worked on a rocky stretch of coastline received oil once a month to keep his light burning. Not being far from a village, he had frequent guests. One night a woman needed oil to keep her family warm. Another night a father needed oil for his lamp. Then another needed oil to lubricate a wheel. All the requests seemed legitimate, so the lighthouse keeper tried to meet them all. Toward the end of the month, however, he ran out of oil, and his lighthouse went dark, causing several ships to crash on the coastline. The man was reproved by his superiors, “You were given the oil for one reason,” they said, “to keep the light burning.”1 We cannot meet every need in the world. We cannot please every person in the world. We cannot satisfy every request in the world. But some of us try. And in the end, we run out of fuel. Have a sane estimate of your abilities and stick to them.”
― Max Lucado, quote from Just Like Jesus: Learning to Have a Heart Like His
“Nos quejamos de lo mal que están las cosas, pero yo a veces me pregunto si no están ya mucho peor de lo que nos imaginamos”
― Henning Mankell, quote from One Step Behind
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Genghis: Birth of an...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.
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