“It's a sword, not a fairy wand, you know.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“One thing' Erak said. 'Tell your men to keep their noses clean while they're in Hallasholm. I don't want any trouble.'
Zavac nodded and smiled. 'I understand. This is a quiet town and you don't want the peace disturbed.'
Erak smiled back, but it was like a smile on the face of a shark. 'No. This is a very violent town and if your men cause trouble, my people will break their heads a for them. I don't want to be paying any blood money for damage done to your crew. Understand?'
Zavac's smile faded. He looked for some sign that the Oberjarl was joking, but he saw none. He nodded again, slowly this time.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“Stig: 'Of course, she'll sail rings around Wolfswind,'
Hal: 'Then why didn't you tell him that?'
Stig: 'I like my head where it is.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“You can always win points; winning people’s respect is a lot more important.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“Neither boy ever intended to speak about the events at the cliff that day. But of course their mothers eventually worked the truth out of them. Mothers always do.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“Only if you're a numbskull."
"Numbskull yourself! Want me to numb your skull with this shovel?”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
“What a brotherband!" he declared. "A thief, a touchy first mate, a shortsighted bear, a joker, two twins who can't tell each other apart, a bookworm and a skirl who doesn't know the right shape for a ship's sail." He beamed at all of them, then added, "I can't think of better qualities in a wolfship's crew.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Outcasts
John Flanagan
Born place: in Sydney, Australia
Born date May 22, 1944
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“The horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle: That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.
—David Foster Wallace, “Some Remarks on Kafka’s Funniness” (2005)”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
“He was too many things at once - a boy, a man, and everything in between - and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, quote from The Mirror of Her Dreams
“نعم، في كل خطوة في الحياة نصادف إحباطاً و خيبة و إهانة. فكيف لا تصبح شخصيتنا ممزقة؟ و كيف لا نشعر بهويتنا مهددة؟ كيف لا نشعر بأننا نعيش في عالم يمتلكه الآخرون و يخضع لقواعد يمليها الآخرون.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong
“Even a trashy movie can make you cry. There were deep emotional reactions that ducked the censure of the higher reasoning processes and forced us to enact, however vestigially, our roles - me, the indignant secret lover revealed; Clarissa the woman cruelly betrayed.”
― Ian McEwan, quote from Enduring Love
“The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations, has been called, as if par excellence, analysis. Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and bizarre motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The attention is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are unique and have but little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior acumen. To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some recherché movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales
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Rita Hayworth and Sh...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.
