Quotes from The Nightingale

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“But when he looked at her—and she looked at him—they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person. It was wanting to.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“You’re not alone, and you’re not the one in charge,” Mother said gently. “Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can. I think that is how we serve God—and each other and ourselves—in times as dark as these.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“It is easy to disappear when no one is looking at you.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“In love we find out who we want to be, in war we find out who we are.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“You are my sunlight in the dark and the ground beneath my feet.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there’s a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“I belong to a generation that didn't expect to be protected from every danger. We knew the risks and took them anyway.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“How fragile life was, how fragile they were.
Love.
It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between. It didn’t matter that she was broken and ugly and sick. He loved her and she loved him, All her life she had waited -longed for - people to love her, but now she saw what she really mattered. She had known love, been blessed by it.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“She was so tired of being strong.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“A girl’s love for her father. Immutable. Unbearable but unbreakable.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“She has a steel exterior, but it protects a candyfloss heart.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

“If there’s one thing I never do, it’s stop.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from The Nightingale

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Popular quotes

“I love you, Caleb. I love you! If you care for me at all... please, don't do this! Please, don't leave me. I don't know how to live without you. Don't make me go back to trying to be someone I don't know how to be anymore. - Livvie”
― C.J. Roberts, quote from Seduced in the Dark

“I sat looking at her with rapt attention. My heart was thumping, the blood coursing warmly through my veins. What a wonderful pleasure to be sitting in a human dwelling again, hear a clock ticking, and talk with a lively young girl instead of with myself!
Why don't you say something?"
Ah, how sweet you are!" I said. "I'm sitting here getting fascinated by you, at this moment I'm thoroughly fascinated. I can't help it. You are the strangest person that... Sometimes your eyes are so radiant, I've never seen anything like it, they look like flowers. Eh? No, no, maybe not like flowers but... I'm madly in love with you, and it won't do me a bit of good. What's your name? Really, you must tell me what your name is..."
No, what's your name? Goodness, I almost forgot again! I was thinking all day yesterday that I must ask you. Well, that is, not all day yesterday, I certainly didn't think about you all day yesterday."
Do you know what I've called you? I have called you Ylajali. How do you like it? Such a gliding sound-"
Ylajali?"
Yes."
Is it a foreign language?"
Hmm. No, it's not."
Well, it isn't ugly.”
― Knut Hamsun, quote from Hunger

“Cheer the bull, or cheer the bear; cheer both, and you will be trampled and eaten.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from Lord of Chaos

“I can't make sense out of that girl," he said to the bard, "Can you?"

"Never mind," Fflewddur said, "We aren't really expected to.”
― Lloyd Alexander, quote from The Book of Three

“When a man seats before his eyes the bronze face of his helmet and steps off from the line of departure, he divides himself, as he divides his ‘ticket,’ in two parts. One part he leaves behind. That part which takes delight in his children, which lifts his voice in the chorus, which clasps his wife to him in the sweet darkness of their bed. “That half of him, the best part, a man sets aside and leaves behind. He banishes from his heart all feelings of tenderness and mercy, all compassion and kindness, all thought or concept of the enemy as a man, a human being like himself. He marches into battle bearing only the second portion of himself, the baser measure, that half which knows slaughter and butchery and turns the blind eye to quarter. He could not fight at all if he did not do this.” The men listened, silent and solemn. Leonidas at that time was fifty-five years old. He had fought in more than two score battles, since he was twenty; wounds as ancient as thirty years stood forth, lurid upon his shoulders and calves, on his neck and across his steel-colored beard. “Then this man returns, alive, out of the slaughter. He hears his name called and comes forward to take his ticket. He reclaims that part of himself which he had earlier set aside. “This is a holy moment. A sacramental moment. A moment in which a man feels the gods as close as his own breath. “What unknowable mercy has spared us this day? What clemency of the divine has turned the enemy’s spear one handbreadth from our throat and driven it fatally into the breast of the beloved comrade at our side? Why are we still here above the earth, we who are no better, no braver, who reverenced heaven no more than these our brothers whom the gods have dispatched to hell? “When a man joins the two pieces of his ticket and sees them weld in union together, he feels that part of him, the part that knows love and mercy and compassion, come flooding back over him. This is what unstrings his knees. “What else can a man feel at that moment than the most grave and profound thanksgiving to the gods who, for reasons unknowable, have spared his life this day? Tomorrow their whim may alter. Next week, next year. But this day the sun still shines upon him, he feels its warmth upon his shoulders, he beholds about him the faces of his comrades whom he loves and he rejoices in their deliverance and his own.” Leonidas paused now, in the center of the space left open for him by the troops. “I have ordered pursuit of the foe ceased. I have commanded an end to the slaughter of these whom today we called our enemies. Let them return to their homes. Let them embrace their wives and children. Let them, like us, weep tears of salvation and burn thank-offerings to the gods. “Let no one of us forget or misapprehend the reason we fought other Greeks here today. Not to conquer or enslave them, our brothers, but to make them allies against a greater enemy. By persuasion, we hoped. By coercion, in the event. But no matter, they are our allies now and we will treat them as such from this moment. “The Persian!”
― Steven Pressfield, quote from Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

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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.

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