“My dear fellow,' Burlingame said, 'we sit here on a blind rock careening through space; we are all of us rushing headlong to the grave. Think you the worms will care, when anon they make a meal of you, whether you spent your moment sighing wigless in your chamber, or sacked the golden towns of Montezuma? Lookee, the day's nigh spent; 'tis gone careening into time forever. Not a tale's length past we lined our bowels with dinner, and already they growl for more. We are dying men, Ebenezer: i'faith, there's time for naught but bold resolves!”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
“All men are loyal, but their objects of allegiance are at best approximate.”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
“Is man a savage at heart, skinned o'er with fragile Manners? Or is savagery but a faint taint in the natural man's gentility, which erupts now and again like pimples on an angel's arse?”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
“The difference here 'twixt simple and witty folk, if the truth be known, is that your plain man cares much for what stand ye take and not a fart for why ye take it, while your smart wight leaves ye whate'er stand ye will, sobeit ye defend it cleverly.”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
“... a man's most useful friend and fearsome foe is the poet.”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
“Ah, God, it were an easy Matter to choose a Calling had
one all Time to live in! I should be fifty Years a
Barrister, fifty a Physician, fifty a Clergyman, fifty a
Soldier! Aye, and fifty a Thief, and fifty a Judge! All
Roads are fine Roads, beloved Sister, none more than
another, so that with one Life to spend I am a Man
bare-bumm'd at Taylors with Cash for but one pair of
Breeches, or a Scholar at Brookstalls with Money for a
single Book: to choose ten were no Trouble; to choose one,
impossible! All Trades, all Crafts, all Professions are
wondrous, but none is finer than the rest together. I
cannot choose, sweet Anna: twixt Stools my Breech falleth
to the Ground!”
― John Barth, quote from The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth
Born place: in Cambridge, Maryland, The United States
Born date May 27, 1930
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“worried about you, I’d never have asked Mia about it. Rather saw my tongue in half with a rusty kitchen knife. But I did ask her, and she’s not clear on it.’ ‘Honey, what you said before about knowing me, that’s true. Now what do you think my reaction is to what you just said?’ She hissed out a breath. ‘If he comes after her, he’ll have to get through you.’ ‘Close enough. Shouldn’t you be out on patrol, or would you rather take the paperwork portion of our day?’ ‘I’d rather eat lice.’ She put on her cap, yanked the tail of her hair through the back. ‘Look, I’m glad you found someone who suits you. I’m even more glad I like her. But there’s more to Nell Channing than a nice woman with a murky past who can bake like a team of angels.’ ‘You mean she’s a witch,’ he said easily. ‘Yeah, I figured that out. I’ve got no particular problem with it.’ So saying, he went back to the keyboard, chuckling to himself when Ripley slammed the door behind her. ‘The goddess doesn’t require sacrifice,’ Mia said. ‘She’s a mother. Like a mother, she requires respect, love, discipline, and wants happiness for her children.’ The evening was cool. Mia could already scent the end of summer. Soon her woods would change from green and lush to wild color. She’d already seen the woolly caterpillars, watched the busy squirrel hoarding”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Dance Upon the Air
“The basic approach of positioning is not to create something new and different, but to manipulate what's already up there in the mind, to retie the connections that already exist.”
― Al Ries, quote from Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace
“She was taking a round of medications, a mystical wheel, the ritualistic design of the hours and days in tablets and capsules, in colors, shapes and numbers.”
― Don DeLillo, quote from Falling Man
“The beaches at Malibu are neither white nor as wide as the beach at Carmel. The hills are scrubby and barren, infested with bikers and rattlesnakes, scarred with cuts and old burns and new R.V. parks. For these and other reasons Malibu tends to astonish and disappoint those who have never seen it, and yet its very name remains, in the imagination of people all over the world, a kind of shorthand for the easy life. I had not before 1971 and will probably not again live in a place with a Chevrolet named after it.”
― Joan Didion, quote from The White Album
“Fucking pro bono work. Going to get me killed one day.”
― Jennifer Estep, quote from Venom
The Complete Sherloc...
Foundation
The Awakening
Sophie's Choice
Sophie's World
The Time MachineBookQuoters 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.
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