Quotes from The Promise

“It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned. . . . You're alone when you're learning. But you always use it on other people. It's different when there are other people involved.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“A choice tells the world what is most important to a human being. When a man has a choice to make he chooses what is most important to him, and that choice tells the world what kind of a man he is.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“It is strange how ideas can float about and be ignored until they are put into a book. A book can be a weapon...”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“I held it close to my face and smelled the ink. I have always loved the smell of ink in a new book.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“When the alternative is possible disaster, a man must gamble.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“One derives great moral strength from a cup of coffee," I said.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“You don't want to make mistakes with people. Sometimes when you make a mistake you lose a human soul.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“It's always easier to learn something than to use what you've learned.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“Williamsburg was stifling, narcotized by the heat.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“We become like dead branches and last year's leaves and what the hell good are we for ourselves and the world in a mental ghetto.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“A man must sometimes be forced to make choices, for it is only by his choices that we know what a man truly is.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“They become angry and ugly and they fight anything that's a threat to them. We have to learn how to fight back without hurting them too much.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“It's only a book. But what it means to write a book.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“He's not asking me to make a choice. He's telling me to take a stand. I'm either with him or against him. All or nothing. I'm disgusted with the whole business. I don't want smicha if the price I have to pay for it is to stop thinking.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“A man must be forced to choose. It is only when you are forced to choose that you know what is important to you.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“Take care of your father," he said. "There aren't many people like him around anymore.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“If everybody who had brains and doubts left Orthodoxy, we would be in a great deal of trouble.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“Verbal fraud is worse than monetary fraud.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“Perhaps. But it is childish to think of what might have been.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“How do I convince him that the way we study Talmud is not a threat?'

'But it is a threat, Reuven. I just told you it is a threat. In the hands of those who do not love the tradition it is a dangerous weapon.'

'Everything is dangerous in the wrong hands. How do I convince him that we're not a threat?”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“It's my world, best friend. And I haven't seen anything outside that's better.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“There are times when those who fear God make themselves very unpleasant as human beings.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“We will have many fights. But they will be for the sake of Torah.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“There’s a rabbi in the Talmud who even says there’s no atonement for lashon hara.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

“Gossip, gossip, gossip. Rumors. Tongues. ‘Life and death are in the power of the tongue,’ ” he quoted in Hebrew.”
― Chaim Potok, quote from The Promise

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Popular quotes

“Chance is the first step you take, luck is what comes afterward.”
― Amy Tan, quote from The Kitchen God's Wife

“Helmer: To desert your home, your husband and your children! And you don‘t consider what people will say!

Nora: I cannot consider that at all. I only know that it is necessary
for me.

Helmer: It‘s shocking. This is how you would neglect your most sacred duties.

Nora: What do you consider my most sacred duties?

Helmer: Do I need to tell you that? Are they not your duties to your husband and your children?

Nora: I have other duties just as sacred.

Helmer: That you have not. What duties could those be?

Nora: Duties to myself.

Helmer: Before all else, you are a wife and mother.

Nora: I don‘t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are — or, at all events, that I must try and become one. I know quite well, Torvald, that most people would think you right, and that views of that kind are to be found in books; but I can no longer content myself with what most people say, or with what is found in books. I must think over things for myself and get to understand them.”
― Henrik Ibsen, quote from A Doll's House

“Consistent or inconsistent, no one is exempt from the mystery of the self. Probably we are all inconsistent. The world is just too complicated for a person to be able to afford the luxury of reconciling all of his beliefs with each other. Tension and confusion are important in a world where many decisions must be made quickly. Miguel de Unamuno once said, 'If a person never contradicts himself, it must be that he says nothing.' I would say that we all are in the same boast as the Zen master who, after contradicting himself several times in a row, said to the confused Doko, 'I cannot understand myself.'.”
― Douglas R. Hofstadter, quote from Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

“Twenty, thirty, forty feet. The pressure wasn’t uncomfortable. I’d never tried to push it—to see if there was a limit to how deep I could dive. I knew most regular humans couldn’t go past two hundred feet without crumpling like an aluminum can. I should’ve been blind, too, this deep in the water at night, but I could see the heat from living forms, and the cold of the currents. It’s hard to describe. It wasn’t like regular seeing, but I could tell where everything was. As I got closer to the bottom, I saw three hippocampi—fish-tailed horses—swimming in a circle around an overturned boat. The hippocampi were beautiful to watch. Their fish tails shimmered in rainbow colors, glowing phosphorescent. Their manes were white, and they were galloping through the water the way nervous horses do in a thunderstorm. Something was upsetting them. I got closer and saw the problem. A dark shape—some kind of animal—was wedged halfway under the boat and tangled in a fishing net, one of those big nets they use on trawlers to catch everything at once. I hated those things. It was bad enough they drowned porpoises and dolphins, but they also occasionally caught mythological animals. When the nets got tangled, some lazy fishermen would just cut them loose and let the trapped animals die. Apparently this poor creature had been mucking around on the bottom of Long Island Sound and had somehow gotten itself tangled in the net of this sunken fishing boat. It had tried to get out and managed to get even more hopelessly stuck, shifting the boat in the process. Now the wreckage of the hull, which was resting against a big rock, was teetering and threatening to collapse on top of the tangled animal. The hippocampi were swimming around frantically, wanting to help but not sure how. One was trying to chew the net, but hippocampi teeth just aren’t meant for cutting rope. Hippocampi are really strong, but they don’t have hands, and they’re not (shhh) all that smart. Free”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Percy Jackson and the Olympians

“Decapitation is not a healthy lifestyle choice.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from The Blood of Olympus

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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.