“How short a time a person had to be alive, he thought. How long to be dead.”
― Kate Grenville, quote from The Secret River
“it crossed Farren's mind that although death seemed big, life was even bigger”
― Kate Grenville, quote from The Secret River
“This place had been here long before him. It would go on sighing and breathing and being itself after he had gone, the land lapping on and on, watching, waiting, getting on with its own life.”
― Kate Grenville, quote from The Secret River
“Ain't nothing in this world just for the taking...A man got to pay a fair price for taking...Matter of give a little, take a little.”
― Kate Grenville, quote from The Secret River
“Think about ethanol again. The benefits of that $7 billion tax subsidy are bestowed on a small group of farmers, making it quite lucrative for each one of them. Meanwhile, the costs are spread over the remaining 98 percent of us, putting ethanol somewhere below good oral hygiene on our list of everyday concerns. The opposite would be true with my plan to have left-handed voters pay subsidies to right-handed voters. There are roughly nine right-handed Americans for every lefty, so if every right-handed voter were to get some government benefit worth $100, then every left-handed voter would have to pay $900 to finance it. The lefties would be hopping mad about their $900 tax bills, probably to the point that it became their preeminent political concern, while the righties would be only modestly excited about their $100 subsidy. An adept politician would probably improve her career prospects by voting with the lefties.
Here is a curious finding that makes more sense in light of what we‘ve just discussed. In countries where farmers make up a small fraction of the population, such as America and Europe, the government provides large subsidies for agriculture. But in countries where the farming population is relatively large, such as China and India, the subsidies go the other way. Farmers are forced to sell their crops at below-market prices so that urban dwellers can get basic food items cheaply. In the one case, farmers get political favors; in the other, they must pay for them. What makes these examples logically consistent is that in both cases the large group subsidizes the smaller group.
In politics, the tail can wag the dog. This can have profound effects on the economy.”
― Charles Wheelan, quote from Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
“Women believe that men are, in a sense, defective versions of women, Men believe that women are defective versions of men. Both genders are trapped in a
delusion that their personal viewpoints are universal. That viewpoint—that each gender is a defective version of the
other—is the root of all misunderstandings.”
― Scott Adams, quote from God's Debris: A Thought Experiment
“This nation should be less worried about putting the Vietnam syndrome behind us than restarting the World War II victory syndrome that resulted in the Vietnam syndrome in the first place.”
― Karl Marlantes, quote from What It is Like to Go to War
“من غير بلده فقد غير كل شئ فى حياته.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Insulted and Humiliated
“When you know the answer, it's not being hardheaded. It's just being right.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from The Next Always
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.