“If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Writing is something that you can learn only by doing. To become a writer, you need an imagination, which you clearly have. You need to read books, which you clearly do. And you need to write, which you don't yet do, but should.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“That wouldn't be a bad way to die...giving off light for millions of years after you're gone.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“I've made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“So when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it's gone.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“I want you to be careful in this world. My heart is wrapped up in you.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“What you call pride, I call courage.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“We live in a series of moments and seasons and sense memories, strung end to end to form a sort of story.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“How is it every time we're talking about the real world, you manage to bring up fantasy, and every time we're talking about fantasy, you manage to bring up the real world?
Travis shrugged. "My fantasies are more interesting than the real world and machines and tools are more interesting than you guys' fantasies.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“You're never safe from yourself. Your own blood will poison you.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“I’m tired of watching children perish. I’m tired of watching the world grind up gentle people. I’m tired of outliving those I shouldn’t be outliving. I’ve made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery. I needed to say that out loud to somebody other than my cats. Please take care of yourselves, my young friends.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“The worst days spent with her were better than the best days spent without her.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Wanting to believe something is powerful”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“People live quiet lives and that's okay. There's dignity in that, no matter what you may think.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Some fall in glorious ways. One green fields of battle as old warriors, surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty.
Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone, for no good reason at all.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“There are books stacked high around them - the way opportunity and possibility are stacked around them.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“music was the only beautiful thing he owned”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Because we should do things we're afraid of. It makes it easier every time we do it.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“She got up , walked around the table, and gave him a lingering hug, running her fingers through the back of his hair. She'd been finding more excuses to hug him lately.
"What was that for?" Dill asked.
"Because you looked like your heart stepped on a Lego.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Love deserves monuments, and this is the only kind I know how to build.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“We are a fallen species, spitting on the gift of salvation. Humanity is irredeemable.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Some fall in glorious ways. On green fields of battle as old warriors, surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty.
Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone, for no good reason at all.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“And if you’re going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Knight, proud in victory, proud in death. Let your name evermore be a light to those who loved you. Let white flowers grow upon this place that you rest. Yours was a life well lived, and now you dine in the halls of the Elders at their eternal feast.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“You're telling someone in a wheelchair 'Walking is awesome. You should get up and walk.' It's not that easy.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Do you guys not get it? You can’t hurt us anymore. You can’t do anything to us. You can’t take anything from us. You’re nothing now.”
― Jeff Zentner, quote from The Serpent King
“Monsters don’t exist. It’s men you should be afraid of, not monsters.”
― Niccolò Ammaniti, quote from I'm Not Scared
“If you let go of me now,” I whispered, stretching against him, “it could be another six hundred years before you find me again. Are you willing to take that risk?”
― Anne Fortier, quote from Juliet
“The smell of it. The feel of it." He rubbed one hand up and down the stained sheath of his sword, making a faint swishing sound. "War is honest. There's no lying to it. You don't have to say sorry here. Don't have to hide. You cannot. If you die? So what? You die among friends. Among worthy foes. You die looking the Great Leveller in the eye. If you live? Well, lad that's living, isn't it? A man isn't truly alive until he's facing death." Whirrun stamped his foot into the sod. "I love war!”
― Joe Abercrombie, quote from The Heroes
“The dowager rose and slipped from her pew. There was the sound of tearing silk as she threw up her arms to embrace her son. Then:
"Oh, Rupert, darling," she exclaimed in tones of theatrical despair, "don't you see? The game's up!”
― Eva Ibbotson, quote from A Countess Below Stairs
“i know the difference between what i can't do and what i refuse to do!”
― Leslie Feinberg, quote from Stone Butch Blues
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.