“If you think about it long enough, you see that the paradox is actually pointing you to the idea that we have no freedom whatsoever. If we're forced to use free will, what meaning does freedom have?”
― quote from The November Criminals
“That's how life is: it provides these accidental answers. Or it seems to. You have to judge by results.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“Success is supposed to lead you on to more success. Our whole society is constructed around this principle.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“His story also demonstrates an obscure truth. Having a plan, any plan, means you know on some level you're going to fail, you're in the wrong. This contradicts everything I've been taught, all the larger principles of modern life, which are all about planning and calculation. But if you're going to success, how could you need to think it out beforehand? If you had the necessary confidence--in every case perfect, unbreakable confidence--the idea of a plan would make you laugh.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“En la felicidad hay un sabor, como un trasfondo o algo así, de que la vida está irremediablemente mal.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“Reliable mediocrity, I’ve decided, is the most important thing for the continuation of human existence.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“Now, I knew more, and I knew what I wanted.
I wasn’t afraid of taking it and taking chances.”
― Penelope Douglas, quote from Rival
“…the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from What Do You Care What Other People Think?
“Lord Peter was hampered in his career as a private detective by a public school education. Despite Parker's admonitions, he was not always able to discount it. His mind had been warped in its young growth by "Raffles" and "Sherlock Holmes," or the sentiments for which they stand. He belonged to a family which had never shot a fox.
'I am an amateur,' said Lord Peter”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, quote from Whose Body?
“Little is known about her. We are assured, however, that the same damnable involvements that obsess us obsess her too. Copulation. Strangeness. Applause.”
― Donald Barthelme, quote from Sixty Stories
“It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, He could have cooked his rice much sooner.”
― quote from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
Sugar
Hell
Knight's Fork
An Affair Before Chr...
The Starfish and the...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.
