“The conversations rests uneasily; one doesn't expect good-byes to be burdened by such trivialities. This is not how it is in the books, he thinks, or in the theater, and he feels the need to speak of mission, of duty, of love. They reach home and close the door and he doesn't drop her hand. Where speech fails, touch compensates.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“White. Like a clean piece of paper, like uncarved ivory, all is white when the story begins.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“At times I wonder if the reason I have lost track of time is that I will know when to return not by a date, but when an emptiness is filled.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“being needed was not the same as being accepted.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“good piano tuner must have knowledge not only of his instrument but of “Physics, Philosophy, and Poetics,” so that Edgar, although he never attended university, reached his twentieth birthday with more education than many who had.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“that being needed was not the same as being accepted.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“One learns a lot if others assume you are deaf to their tongue.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“war. A balanced peace is a poor fertilizer for promotion.”
― Daniel Mason, quote from The Piano Tuner
“However, little by little, I am coming to the view that what I mistook for humility was, in fact, an accurate evaluation of your worth.”
― Trevanian, quote from The Summer of Katya
“And Americans always think international laws are for other people anyway,”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from First Meetings in Ender's Universe
“Fuck the drug war. Dropping acid was a profound turning point for me, a seminal experience. I make no apologies for it. More people should do acid. It should be sold over the counter.”
― George Carlin, quote from Last Words
“The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart
How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.”
― Jack Gilbert, quote from The Great Fires
“No one ever died from having too much information. It’s the misunderstandings that are the problem.”
― Rebecca Serle, quote from When You Were Mine
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.