“Maybe one day the words will pour out like so many others, easy and smooth and on their own. Right now they take pieces of me with them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Magda looks at me as if I've gone mad. Or I've grown up. It's kind of the same thing.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The wind took hold of whatever I felt, and ran away with it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“I feel connected to you, and I couldn't bear the thought of that being severed. Lost.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Everything seems different at night. Defined. Beyond the window, the world is full of shadows, all pressed together in harsh relief, somehow sharper than they ever were in daylight.
Sounds seem sharper,too, at night. A whistle. A crack. A child's whisper.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“You really are like him, your father."
"I can't tell whether you think that's good or bad."
"What does it matter? It's simply true.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Properly buried."
"Properly kept."
"That is the way with witches."
"And with all things.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“I can see him juggling the words inside his head. Fumbling. I tried to juggle once, with three apples I'd found in the pantry. But I just ended up bruising them all so badly my mother had to make apple bread. The whole time I was trying, I kept getting lost in the movements. I couldn't concentrate on all of them at once.
I wish Cole would give me an apple. And then he looks at me, and there's that same sad, almost smile, like he's decided to pass me one, but he knows I can't juggle either. Like there's no reason for both of us to bruise things any more than needed.
I hold out my hand. "Let me help.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Well," I ask, leaning over him, "do you wish to stay?"
"I do."
"And why is that, Cole?" I say, tipping toward him so that our noses nearly brush.
"Well," he says with a smile, "the weather's quite nice.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Her bare feet land with light thuds like rain on stones.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Fear is a strange thing,” he used to say. “It has the power to make people close their eyes, turn away. Nothing good grows out of fear.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Funny how when we start to tell a secret, we can’t stop. Something falls open in us, and the sheer momentum of letting go pushes us on.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Of every aspect of the moor, the earth and stone and rain and fire, the wind is the strongest one in Near. Here on the outskirts of the village, the wind is always pressing close, making windows groan. It whispers and it howls and it sings. It can bend its voice and cast it into any shape, long and thin enough to slide beneath the door, stout enough to seem a thing of weight and breath and bone. “The wind was here when you were born, when I was born, when our house was built, when the Council was formed, and even when the Near Witch lived,”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Cole steps forward, his fingers reaching around my shoulders, and kisses me.
It is sudden and smooth and soft as air against my lips. The wind whips around us, tugging at the fabric of our clothes, but not pulling us apart.
And then it's gone, the cool pressure against my lips, and my eyes are open and looking into two gray eyes like river rocks.
"/That's/ what you wanted to show me?"
"No," he says, his fingers slipping down my arms as he leads me off the path and out, away from Near. "That was just in case.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The morning is a stealthy hunter, my father used to say. It sneaks up quiet and quick on the night and overtakes it.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“All Near knows.” “All Near forgets.” “Or tries.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“No, dearie. I don’t need any seeds. And besides, I’m growing moor flowers. Wildflowers.” “I didn’t know you could, in this soil.” “You can’t, of course. That’s the point. Flowers are freethinking things. They grow where they please. I’d like to see you try and tell a moor flower where to grow.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The wind was here when you were born, when I was born, when our house was built, when the Council was formed, and even when the Near Witch lived,”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“When I was small, the wind sang me lullabies. Lilting, humming, high-pitched things, filling the space around me so that even when all seemed quiet, it wasn’t. This is a wind I have lived with.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“My father taught me how to track, how to read the ground and the trees. He taught me that everything has a language, that if you knew the language, you could make the world talk. The grass and the dirt hold secrets, he’d say. The wind and the water carry stories and warnings.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“The trees all whisper, leaves gossiping. The stones are heavy thinkers, the sullen silent types. He used to make up stories for everything in nature, giving it all voices, lives. If the moor wind ever sings, you mustn’t listen, not with all of your ears. Use only the edges. Listen the way you’d look out the corners of your eyes. The wind is lonely, love, and always looking for company.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“It is as if the moon and the trees have switched places. The sky is plunged into the heavy cloud-lidded darkness that seems to come every night, but in the valley below, the trees—or the places between the trees, it is impossible to tell the source—are fully lit, glowing. The woods are alight like an ember, bluish white and cradled by the rolling hills. It’s like a beacon, I think with a chill. So this is what happens when the world goes black. The forest steals the light from the sky. Cole straightens beside me, taking ragged breaths. I cannot stop staring at the glowing trees. It is strange and magical. Almost lovely. The wind song has become simply a song, clear and articulate, as if made by an instrument instead of the air. It is all a perfect dream.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Being a stranger is not a crime.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“sheets, I keep hearing something—or someone—calling, just loud enough to pierce the walls. The voice is surely something more than wind, curling and twisting itself into highs and lows, like muffled music. I know that if only I could lean closer, words would become clear, distinct. Words that wouldn’t break apart before I can wrap my mind around them.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Near Witch
“Leave him be, Sin, or I swear, in the mood I’m in, I’ll tear your head off your shoulders and use it for a footstool. (Braden)”
― Kinley MacGregor, quote from Claiming the Highlander
“TWO THINGS STRIKE every Irish person when he comes to America, Irish friends tell me: the vastness of the country, and the seemingly endless desire of its people to talk about their personal problems. Two things strike an American when he comes to Ireland: how small it is, and how tight-lipped. An Irish person with a personal problem takes it into a hole with him, like a squirrel with a nut before winter. He tortures himself and sometimes his loved ones, too. What he doesn’t do, if he has suffered some reversal, is vent about it to the outside world. The famous Irish gift of gab is a cover for all the things they aren’t telling you.”
― Michael Lewis, quote from Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
“Charles arrived around eight a.m. with a squadron of Drabants and began riding along the bank at the water’s edge to inspect the men and their positions. Some of the Russians from the force which had been driven back remained on one of the numerous islands in midstream, and they began to fire at the party of Swedish officers across the water. The musket range was short and a Drabant was shot dead in his saddle. Charles, without the slightest care for his own safety, continued his slow ride at the water’s edge. Then, his inspection finished, he turned his horse to ride back up the bank. His back was to the enemy, and at that moment he was hit in the left foot by a Russian musket ball. The ball struck his heel, piercing the boot, plunging forward through the length of the foot, smashing a bone and finally passing out near the big toe. Count Stanislaus Poniatowski, a Polish nobleman accredited to Charles XII by King Stanislaus, who was riding next to the King, noticed that he was hurt, but Charles commanded him to keep quiet. Although the wound must have been excruciatingly painful, the King continued his tour of inspection as if nothing had happened. It was not until eleven a.m., almost three hours after being hit, that he returned to his headquarters and prepared to dismount. By this time, the officers and men near him had noticed his extreme pallor and the blood dripping from his torn left boot. Charles tried to dismount but the movement caused such agony that he fainted. By”
― Robert K. Massie, quote from Peter the Great: His Life and World
“You were once my beauty from pain, before you became by beauty from surrender. Now you've adapted into something different again."
"And what is that?"
"My beauty from love-both of you. Forever.”
― Georgia Cates, quote from Beauty from Love
“History shows that an examination of the personal collection of titles in any man’s library will provide something of a glimpse into his soul.”
― Andrew Smith, quote from Grasshopper Jungle
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.