“I was perhaps as intensely naïve to think I could get a job working with the Yankees. But the lesson to me is that with a great deal of persistence and a little bit of common sense, even if the thing you’re chasing may not exist, you can sometimes will it into being.”
― quote from The Moth
“that when we can celebrate and truly own what it is that makes us different, we’re able to find the source of our greatest creative power.”
― quote from The Moth
“There was a nook in the house that contained what they called the Turkish Room, which was for intimate conversation. And when my mother had her sixth birthday, her grandmother led her into the Turkish Room. They were both named Inez. And on that day Big Inez gave Little Inez a plantation all her own. Two thousand acres. Then her little sister came running in and said, “Grandmother, can I have a plantation too?” And Big Inez looked down and said, “Child, your name is Alice. You were named for your Yankee grandmother. Go ask your Yankee grandmother for a plantation.”
― quote from The Moth
“The great storyteller Frank O’Connor defined it best, saying once that every good story should end, in spirit, with the exact same words: “And everything that ever happened to me afterwards, I never felt the same about again.”
― quote from The Moth
“Orwell’s famous lesson, “Autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”
― quote from The Moth
“How could I forget you, Darryl? You called me God.”
― quote from The Moth
“He did not know what love was. And he did not know what good it was. But he knew he carried with him, a scabrous spot of rot, of contagion, for which there was no cure. Rage would not cure it. Indulgence made it worse, flamed it, made it grow like cancer. And it had ruined his life. Not now, not in this moment. Long before. The world had seemed a good and liveable place. Brutal, yes. but there was a certain joy in that. The brutality on the football fields, in the tonks, was celebration. Men were maimed without malice, sometimes--often even--in friendship. Lonely, yes. Running was lonely. Sweat was lonely. The pain of preparation was lonely. There's no way to share a pulled hamstring with somebody else. There's no way to farm out part of a twisted knee. But who in god's name ever assumed otherwise? Once you know that it was all bearable”
― Harry Crews, quote from A Feast of Snakes
“It is something radically different from them all. They are out for battle and extol violence; liberalism, on the contrary, desires peace and the ascendancy of ideas. It is for this reason that all parties, however badly disunited they may otherwise be, form a united front against liberalism.
The enemies of liberalism have branded it as the party of the special interests of the capitalists. This is characteristic of their mentality. They simply cannot understand a political ideology as anything but the advocacy of certain special privileges opposed to the general welfare.
One cannot look on liberalism as a party of special interests, privileges, and prerogatives, because private ownership of the means of production is not a privilege redounding to the exclusive advantage of the capitalists, but an institution in the interest of the whole of society and consequently an institution that benefits everyone.”
― Ludwig von Mises, quote from Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
“Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen, quote from Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life
“The more she tried to recapture the impulse that had set her wanting to put pen to paper, the less it seemed to have ever existed in the first place.”
― Charles de Lint, quote from The Very Best of Charles de Lint
“Normally he was fond of most things. He was a good-natured and cheerful young man, who liked life and the great majority of those who lived it contemporaneously with himself. He had no enemies and many friends.
But today he had noticed from the moment he had got out of bed that something was amiss with the world. Either he was in the grip of some divine discontent due to the highly developed condition of his soul, or else he had a grouch. One of the two.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from A Damsel in Distress
Old School
Hardline
Death Is a Lonely Bu...
Ismael
Forever Night Stand
Complementary ColorsBookQuoters 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.
