“...our souls may be consumed by shadows, but that doesn't mean we have to behave as monsters.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“There's never going to be someone else," he says, shaking his head. "You've wrecked me. I wouldn't be any good to anybody now—except for you.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“Let the whole world knock. I'm not opening that door.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“A Seer dreams of all kinds of endings, but never a happy one for herself.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“And here I am, bravely risking the fallout of wounding your fragile, pudding-like soul—because real, forever friends don’t let each other wear ugly hats. I’ve wanted to say it for a month now, and I can bear it no longer. I know my witch is showing, but please take that thing off your head.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“I think the purest of souls, those with the most fragile of hearts, must be meant for a short life. They can't be tethered or held in your palm. Just like a sparrow, they light on your porch. Their song might be brief, but how greedy would we be to ask for more? No, you cannot keep a sparrow. You can only hope that as they fly away, they take a little bit of you with them.”
― Emm Cole, quote from The Short Life of Sparrows
“Nabokov, Heinrich von Kleist, Raymond Carver, Jane Bowles, James Baldwin, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant—the list goes on and on. They are the teachers to whom I go, the authorities I consult, the models that still help to inspire me with the energy and courage it takes to sit down at a desk each day and resume the process of learning, anew, to write.”
― Francine Prose, quote from Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them
“Truth could be violent, could strip you of dignity and hope just as quickly as a gun.”
― Laurell K. Hamilton, quote from Strange Candy
“Away acrost his valley he sees Black Mountain rising jagged to the sky...and if he looks to the left on past it, he sees all the furtherest ranges, line on line. Purple and blue and blue again and smoky until you can't tell the mountains apart from the sky. Lord, it'll make a man think something, seeing that. It'll make a man think deep.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“the will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you. I”
― Neil T. Anderson, quote from Victory Over the Darkness
“Children killing children. That's a terrible thing."
"What do you think has gone wrong?"
"It's not just the children. It's the grown-ups too. Some people are growing children, not raising children, and there's a big difference."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, people grow hogs. You give them a place to live, give them all the food they need to keep growing, and make sure that they don't get sick on you. With children you got to raise them. Of course, you feed and clothe them. But a parent has to take the time to teach them right and wrong. A parent has to discipline them. And a parent got to be there to listen to them, help them with their problems. I think most people do their best, but there are some parents these days that are growing children, not raising children.
"It's a sad thing. These children have everything they need to grow up, but they are missing something inside. They must hurt awful bad and no one has shown them the way to live. Buying them their food or even fancy clothes or a car ain't going to help if a child is hurting inside. We all need the same things.”
― quote from Life is So Good
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.