Quotes from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“Adrian Mole's diary
Easter
Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have the guts to do it myself.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“I used to be the sort of boy who had sand kicked in his face, now I'm the sort of boy who watches somebody else have it kicked in their face”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“Had a note from Mr Cherry asking me when I can resume my paper round. I sent a note back to say that due to my mother's desertion I am still in a mental state. This is true. I wore odd socks yesterday without knowing it. One was red and one was green. I must pull myself together. I could end up in a lunatic asylum.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“Mrs O'Leary said, 'Tis the child I feel sorry for', and all the people looked up and saw me, so I looked especially sad, I expect the experience will give me a trauma at some stage in the future. I'm all right at the moment, but you never know.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“I asked her about my Family Allowance today, she laughed and said she used it for buying gin and cigarettes.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“said he ‘would rather go without’.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“Measured my ‘thing’. It was eleven centimetres.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“My grandma let the dog out of the coal shed. She said my mother was cruel to lock it up. The dog was sick on the kitchen floor. My grandma locked it up again.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“She is just straight all the way up and down, including her nose and mouth and hair.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“He was standing very still with his arms folded, staring with poached egg eyes.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“I had my first wet dream!”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

“I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.”
― Sue Townsend, quote from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

About the author

Popular quotes

“A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. The story should never be made up of improbable incidents; there should be nothing of the sort in it.”
― Aristotle, quote from Poetics

“Those incapable of thinking gravely read gravity into frivolties which correspond to their own frivolous nature.”
― Plotinus, quote from The Enneads

“If there is no scent of Christ’s love on someone, then they bear no evidence of true devotion to Christ.”
― Eric Ludy, quote from When God Writes Your Love Story

“A new moon lay on its back, and stars were out. Here, away from lights and sounds of town or village, the night was deep, the black sky stretching, fathomless, away among the spheres to some unimaginable world where gods walked, and suns and moons showered down like petals falling. Some power there is that draws men's eyes and hearts up and outward, beyond the heavy clay that fastens them to earth. Music can take them, and the moon's light, and, I suppose, love, though I had not known it then, except in worship.”
― Mary Stewart, quote from The Last Enchantment

“The Dying Man"

in memoriam W.B. Yeats

1. His words

I heard a dying man
Say to his gathered kin,
“My soul’s hung out to dry,
Like a fresh salted skin;
I doubt I’ll use it again.

“What’s done is yet to come;
The flesh deserts the bone,
But a kiss widens the rose
I know, as the dying know
Eternity is Now.

“A man sees, as he dies,
Death’s possibilities;
My heart sways with the world.
I am that final thing,
A man learning to sing.

2. What Now?

Caught in the dying light,
I thought myself reborn.
My hand turn into hooves.
I wear the leaden weight
Of what I did not do.

Places great with their dead,
The mire, the sodden wood,
Remind me to stay alive.
I am the clumsy man
The instant ages on.

I burned the flesh away,
In love, in lively May.
I turn my look upon
Another shape than hers
Now, as the casement blurs.

In the worst night of my will,
I dared to question all,
And would the same again.
What’s beating at the gate?
Who’s come can wait.

3. The Wall

A ghost comes out of the unconscious mind
To grope my sill: It moans to be reborn!
The figure at my back is not my friend;
The hand upon my shoulder turns to horn.
I found my father when I did my work,
Only to lose myself in this small dark.

Though it reject dry borders of the seen,
What sensual eye can keep and image pure,
Leaning across a sill to greet the dawn?
A slow growth is a hard thing to endure.
When figures our of obscure shadow rave,
All sensual love’s but dancing on a grave.

The wall has entered: I must love the wall,
A madman staring at perpetual night,
A spirit raging at the visible.
I breathe alone until my dark is bright.
Dawn’s where the white is. Who would know the dawn
When there’s a dazzling dark behind the sun.

4. The Exulting

Once I delighted in a single tree;
The loose air sent me running like a child–
I love the world; I want more than the world,
Or after image of the inner eye.
Flesh cries to flesh, and bone cries out to bone;
I die into this life, alone yet not alone.

Was it a god his suffering renewed?–
I saw my father shrinking in his skin;
He turned his face: there was another man,
Walking the edge, loquacious, unafraid.
He quivered like a bird in birdless air,
Yet dared to fix his vision anywhere.

Fish feed on fish, according to their need:
My enemies renew me, and my blood
Beats slower in my careless solitude.
I bare a wound, and dare myself to bleed.
I think a bird, and it begins to fly.
By dying daily, I have come to be.

All exultation is a dangerous thing.
I see you, love, I see you in a dream;
I hear a noise of bees, a trellis hum,
And that slow humming rises into song.
A breath is but a breath: I have the earth;
I shall undo all dying with my death.

5. They Sing, They Sing

All women loved dance in a dying light–
The moon’s my mother: how I love the moon!
Out of her place she comes, a dolphin one,
Then settles back to shade and the long night.
A beast cries out as if its flesh were torn,
And that cry takes me back where I was born.

Who thought love but a motion in the mind?
Am I but nothing, leaning towards a thing?
I scare myself with sighing, or I’ll sing;
Descend O gentlest light, descend, descend.
I sweet field far ahead, I hear your birds,
They sing, they sing, but still in minor thirds.

I’ve the lark’s word for it, who sings alone:
What’s seen recededs; Forever’s what we know!–
Eternity defined, and strewn with straw,
The fury of the slug beneath the stone.
The vision moves, and yet remains the same.
In heaven’s praise, I dread the thing I am.

The edges of the summit still appall
When we brood on the dead or the beloved;
Nor can imagination do it all
In this last place of light: he dares to live
Who stops being a bird, yet beats his wings
Against the immense immeasurable emptiness of things.”
― Theodore Roethke, quote from The Collected Poems

Interesting books

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.