“We are all on stage, my dear. Sometimes we forget our lines, but luckily an offstage helper can whisper our lines to us until we get back on track.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“Dear girl with the red scarf,
Love was never meant to be conquered. You have to surrender to it.
Trust me, after all, I am Mr. Universe.
”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“Dear girl with the red scarf,
People will come and go in our lives. Most of them we won’t give a second thought to as soon as the door closes behind them. But I had always imagined that you would leave the deepest, everlasting mark.
-Mr. Universe.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“She was magic, a direct light—the kind that seeps through in places that didn’t exist inside him anymore. The light he thought he lost forever, but Nick realized we don’t lose the light, we absorb it, and with Olivia he wanted to absorb every small speck of it.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“I could tell you, but you should never trust what someone says about themselves. It’s something you need to see for yourself.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“He stood there watching for a moment, not able to move. Even with her mascara running down her face and her hair beginning to frizz, she was still by far the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on. It was quite simple, wasn’t it? This great affection he had for Olivia was so overwhelming he chose to walk away instead of being brutally honest with himself.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“Yes, she is.” His eyes remained on Olivia, but she wasn’t aware he was watching her. “With art, I believe anything created with profound heart is captured compulsively beautifully.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“You must not love yourself. I’ll tell you, mademoiselle … your life belongs to you. Only a matter of treating your life a little better and maybe life would treat you better in return.”
― Maria La Serra, quote from The Proverbial Mr. Universe
“Venice the peaceful demands Venice the just.”
― Sarah Dunant, quote from In the Company of the Courtesan
“I should think more crimes have probably been committed by chaps with inferiority complexes trying to demonstrate their virility, than even for money.”
― Mary Renault, quote from The Charioteer
“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: “When I fed the hungry, they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.” Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed. People do not get crucified for living out of love that disrupts the social order that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”
― Shane Claiborne, quote from The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical
“بالنسبة لي ثمة رجل واحد وأرض واحدة. أشعر بالأمر بهذه القوة لأني أعيش مرة واحدة فقط.”
― Jostein Gaarder, quote from Maya
“Love is so complicated. I’m glad I don’t suffer from it and hope I never do. It’s amazing how smart, strong people turn into frail, frightened idiots once their hearts are involved.”
― Laurann Dohner, quote from Obsidian
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.