“Let me tell you something that I learned from my youth, from a sage called the Road Runner. You can walk off a cliff and the air will hold you. Only, don't look down.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Did you know, the man who invented the atomic bomb once said that keeping peace through deterrence was like keeping two scorpions in one bottle? You can picture that, right? They know they can't sting without getting stung. They can't kill without getting killed. And you'd think that would stop them." He gave the book another boot, and it flipped closed with a snick. "But it doesn't." He looked up and his eyes were the color of Cherenkov radiation, the color of an orbital weapon. "You've got a bit of nerve, little scorpion. All I did was invent the bottle.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“No, blowing up cities doesn't work, not in the long term. You've got to find something that the people in charge aren't willing to give up. A price they aren't willing to pay.
Which leads us to Talis's first rule for stopping wars: make it personal.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“I'm not a cruel man. I mean, technically I'm not a man at all.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“There was a space inside me, cupped and still. It was small as cupped hands; it was large as the sky. It was untouched and it was touch itself. It was empty and it was full. I held love there, like a treasure. I held my own name.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“You made tools of us. Have you never considered: the thing of a tool is that anyone may use it.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“The root of holiness, it turns out, is to do things deliberately.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“I wished for impossible things. It was never going to have been a fairy tale for us. There are no fairy tales about two princesses.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“and of course people started shooting, because that’s what passes for problem-solving among humans. See, guys, this is why you can’t have nice things. It”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“It's a strange word, "twilight." It makes me think of endings, of things done or left undone, of things over, of evening. But there are two twilights in every day, and one of them does not foretell darkness, but dawn.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“My mother wanted out of politics. And I'll tell you, she got as far out as she could. Down nigh the Licking River."
"The Licking—" said Da-Xia, as if she couldn't believe her luck.
Elián scrubbed a hand over his face. "The south fork."
"Have you at this point heard all the jokes about that?" asked Grego.
"I'll bet there are more," said Thandi.
"Shut up," said Elián, majestically.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Then he said: "Y'all really took that Socratic method shit to heart."
"The benefits," I intoned, "of a Precepture education ."
"Yes," deadpanned Grego. "We were raised on Latin and Greek instead of love.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Elián, of course, missed it. "How advanced do you need your murders to be? Because I saw Grego die. It didn't look all that hard."
Talis smiled. "Keep snarling at me, Elián Palnik, and we'll see how hard I can make it.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“He was going to die. He deserved a chance to do it on his terms. No matter what it cost us.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“How useless are guns against those who are fearless. How foolish, to set force against innocence. Their own strength made them small. And”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“It was strange. We were from opposing nations that were at the brink of war. We were days away from dying for that war. And yet I would have done almost anything for Elián.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Stop the press," said Talis. "Ha! I haven't heard that in centuries. 'Stop the presses!' But do." The smile was sharp-edged. "Or I'll have your head on pikes.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“I- I. Sorry. This is what my father would call a fucking unfortunate image.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Cranes traditionally represent a wish for peace. I closed my eyes and wished. Uselessly. Hard.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Even as the nannies came into heat—one could tell because they grew louder than roosters and started to sexually assault the water barrels—I”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Why would I come back to you?”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“It was once thought that if you died in your dreams you died in life. Thanks to dreamlock, we know this is not true. Most people can die at least six times before something them gives way.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
Erin Bow
Born place: in Des Moines, Iowa, The United States
See more on GoodReads
“There is many a bodily ailment inflicted on this very score, to be a clog to prevent sin. O bear them patiently upon this consideration. Basil was sorely grieved with an inveterate headache; he earnestly prayed it might be removed; God removed it. No sooner was he freed of this clog, but he felt the inordinate motions of lust, which made him pray for his headache again. So it might be with many of us, if our clogs were off.”
― John Flavel, quote from The Mystery of Providence
“I was free to appreciate the quiet and the way the yellowish-gray light of the rising sun entered the room, turning everything from black and white to color. The journey from Kansas to Oz right in my own kitchen.”
― Edward Kelsey Moore, quote from The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat
“We wanted to be accepted by our fellows, especially the influential natural leaders among us; and the ethos of my peers was – until my last year at Oundle – anti-intellectual. You had to pretend to be working less hard than you actually were. Native ability was respected; hard work was not. It was the same on the sports field. Sportsmen were admired more than scholars in any case. But if you could achieve sporting brilliance without training, so much the better. Why is native ability more admired than hard graft? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
― Richard Dawkins, quote from An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist
“Haska—a dim legendary figure of a generation ago, who went back up the mountain and cleared six acres of brush in the tiny valley that took his name. He broke the soil, reared stone walls and a house, and planted apple trees. And already the site of the house is undiscoverable, the location of the stone walls may be deduced from the configuration of the landscape, and I am renewing the battle, putting in angora goats to browse away the brush that has overrun Haska's clearing and choked Haska's apple trees to death. So I, too, scratch the land with my brief endeavour and flash my name across a page of legal script ere I pass and the page grows musty.”
― Jack London, quote from John Barleycorn: Alcoholic Memoirs
“But you’re supposed to play music, obviously,” said Victoria.
Lawrence looked at her in surprise.
“You mean it? I thought you hated it.”
“I do mean it,” said Victoria. She felt pretty shocked herself. “It’s annoying sometimes—well, a lot of the time, really—but it’s obviously the thing you’re best at, so why shouldn’t you do it?” Embarrassed at how happy Lawrence looked, she tried to smooth the wrinkles out of her dirty pajamas. “I mean, it’s only logical, isn’t it?”
“If you weren’t, well, you—I’d want to kiss you right now.”
It was fortunate that the room was so dark. Victoria’s cheeks turned bright red.
“Well,” she said. “Well.”
― Claire Legrand, quote from The Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls
I, Michael Bennett
Open Season
All But My Life: A M...
The Rosicrucian cosm...
Hidden Gates
Making WavesBookQuoters 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.
