“We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“It takes a year, nephew... a full turn of the calendar, to get over losing someone.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought clam and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“One of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“It's easier to die if others around you are dying.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“What we fear we often rage against.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“If life was an arc of light that began in darkness, ended in darkness, the first part of his life had happened in ordinary glare. Here it was as though he
had found a polarized lens that deepened and intensified all seen through it.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“By January it had always been winter.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“You’ve got a chance to start out all over again. A new place, new people, new sights. A clean slate. See, you can be anything you want with a fresh start.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“There was a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Where are the reporters of yesteryear?' he muttered, 'the nail biting, acerbic, alcoholic nighthawk bastards who truly knew how to write?”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Home after midnight from a debate on the wording of a minor municipal bylaw on bottle recycling, he felt like he was a pin in the hinge of power.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“For Archie was an expert in dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“On the stairs an image came to him. Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought calm and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“The only cities were of ice, bergs with cores of beryl, blue gems within white gems, that some said gave off an odor of almonds.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“The house was heavy around him, the pressure of the past filling the rooms like odorless gas.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“No, they didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand. There was a joinery of lives all worked together, smooth in places, or lumpy, but joined. The work and the living you did was the same things, not separated out like today.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“If a piece ofknotted string can unleash the wind and if a drowned man can awaken... then I believe a broken man can heal.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Three or four days later he was still thinking about seal flipper pie. Remembered the two raw eggs Petal gave him. That he invested with pathetic meaning.
'Petal,' said Quoyle to Wavey, 'hated to cook. Hardly ever did.' Thought of the times he had fixed dinner for her, set put his stupid candles, folded the napkins as though they were important, waited and finally ate alone, the radio on for company. And later dined with the children, shoveling in canned spaghetti, scraping baby food off small chins.
'Once she gave me two eggs. Raw eggs for a present.' He had made an omelet of them, hand-fed her as thought she were a nestling bird. And saved the shells in a paper cup on top of the kitchen cabinet. Where they still must be. ”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“They say that doing ten sums a day prevents you from becoming senile. But by that argument bankers should be geniuses. That's not right. Thickest heads in the world.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“What did it mean, what your father said about the tall, quiet woman.
Ar, that? Let's see. Used to say there was four women in every man's heart. The Maid in the Meadow, the Demon Lover, the Stouthearted Woman, the Tall and Quiet Woman.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“Billy stretched and yawned, his withered neck taut again for a few seconds. "I can feel the season changing," he said. "Drawing in. This weather change coming means the end of hot weather. Time I got out to Gaze Island and worked on me poor old father's grave. Put it off last year and the year before." Some sadness straining the words. Billy seemed stored in an envelope; the flap sometimes lifted, his flattened self sliding onto the table.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“You know, the Chinese have forgotten more about sailing than the rest of the world ever knew.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
“La marée baissait encore dans l'étrange mouvement du flux et reflux de l'eau, comme si un coeur immense au centre de la terre ne battait que deux fois par jour.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
Annie Proulx
Born place: in Norwich, Connecticut, The United States
Born date August 22, 1935
See more on GoodReads
“Woolsey quirked an eyebrow. “You are a funny thing,” he said. “I would say I could see what those boys see in you, but …” He shrugged. His yellow dressing gown had a long, bloody tear in it now. “Women are not something I have ever understood.”
“What about them do you find mysterious, sir?”
“The point of them, mainly.”
“Well, you must have had a mother,” said Tessa.
“Someone whelped me, yes,” said Woolsey without much enthusiasm. “I remember her little.”
“Perhaps, but you would not exist without a woman, would you? However little use you may find us, we are cleverer and more determined and more patient than men. Men may be stronger, but it is women who endure.”
“Is that what you are doing? Enduring? Surely an engaged woman should be happier.” His light eyes raked her. “A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart.”
“House,” said Tessa.
He raised an eyebrow. “What was that?”
“A house divided against itself cannot stand. Not a heart. Perhaps you should not attempt quotations if you cannot get them correct.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Princess
“We who have been hunted through the rapids of life, torn from our former roots, always driven to the end and obliged to begin again, victims and yet also the willing servants of unknown mysterious powers, we for whom comfort has become an old legend and security, a childish dream, have felt tension from pole to pole of our being, the terror of something always new in every fibre. Every hour of our years was linked to the fate of the world. In sorrow and in joy we have lived through time and history far beyond our own small lives, while they knew nothing beyond themselves. Every one of us, therefore, even the least of the human race, knows a thousand times more about reality today than the wisest of our forebears. But nothing was given to us freely; we paid the price in full.”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from The World of Yesterday
“- [...] Ne trouvez-vous pas d'une stupidité caractéristique de l'espèce humaine qu'un homme qui n'a qu'une vie puisse la perdre pour une idée ?
- Il est très rare qu'un homme puisse supporter, comment dirais-je ? sa condition d'homme...”
― André Malraux, quote from Man's Fate
“singing to the radio when you drive”
― Barbara Ann Kipfer, quote from 14,000 Things to Be Happy About
“The repetition of weaving the yarn around a needle and then forming a stitch creates a sense of purpose, of achievement, of progress. When your entire world is unraveling, you tend to crave order, and I found it in knitting.”
― Debbie Macomber, quote from The Shop on Blossom Street
Without Reservations...
A Collection of Essa...
Re: Colonised Planet...
City of Bones
Loose Girl: A Memoir...
Do You Come Here Oft...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.
