Quotes from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically--to those who hardly think about us in return.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“Education is experience, and the essence of experience is self-reliance.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“If there is one thing I can't stand, it is stupidity. I always say that stupidity is the Sin against the Holy Ghost.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“You run a grave risk, my boy," said the magician, "of being turned into a piece of bread, and toasted.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“Life is too bitter already, without territories and wars and noble feuds”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“I think I ought to have some eddication,"said the Wart, "I can't think of anything to do.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

“Merlin: "Grown-ups have developed an unpleasant habit lately, I notice, of comforting themselves for their degradation by pretending that children are childish. I trust we are free of this?"

Arthur: "Everybody knows that children are more intelligent than their parents."

Merlin: "You and I know it, but the people who are going to read this book do not.
Our readers of that time (...) have exactly three ideas in their magnificent noodles. The first is that the human species is superior to others. The second, that the twentieth century is superior to other centuries. And the third, that human adults of the twentieth century are superior to their young. (...)”
― T.H. White, quote from The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-5)

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Popular quotes

“Cowards die a thousand deaths, but the brave only die once.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from A Farewell to Arms

“If you are careful,' Garp wrote, 'if you use good ingredients, and you don't take any shortcuts, then you can usually cook something very good. Sometimes it is the only worthwhile product you can salvage from a day; what you make to eat. With writing, I find, you can have all the right ingredients, give plenty of time and care, and still get nothing. Also true of love. Cooking, therefore, can keep a person who tries hard sane.”
― John Irving, quote from The World According to Garp

“If you have never spent whole afternoons with burning ears and rumpled hair, forgetting the world around you over a book, forgetting cold and hunger--

If you have never read secretly under the bedclothes with a flashlight, because your father or mother or some other well-meaning person has switched off the lamp on the plausible ground that it was time to sleep because you had to get up so early--

If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of the characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless--

If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.”
― Michael Ende, quote from The Neverending Story

“what I want you to be - I don't mean physically but morally: you are very well physically - is a firm fellow, a fine firm fellow, with a will of your own, with resolution. with determination. with strength of character that is not to be influenced except on good reason by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be. That's what your father, & your mother might both have been”
― Charles Dickens, quote from David Copperfield

“He lingered at the door, and said, 'The Lion wants courage, the Tin Man a heart, and the Scarecrow brains. Dorothy wants to go home. What do you want?'...
She couldn't say forgiveness, not to Liir. She started to say 'a soldier,' to make fun of his mooning affections over the guys in uniform. But realizing even as she said it that he would be hurt, she caught herself halfway, and in the end what came out of her mouth surprised them both.
She said, 'A soul-'
He blinked at her.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

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About BookQuoters

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.