“Hindsight, I thought, was like a punishment, remorseless in its clarity and painfully unable to change what had gone before.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Because everything does make sense, when you look at it from the right angle. All you have to do is find out what that angle is, for whatever it is you want to understand, and bang, the universe becomes a rational place.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“To sail beyond the sunset… I’d thought that beautiful, once. But now I knew it was a wasted effort, chasing sunsets. There was nothing on the other side.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“I think we all make choices in our lives that set us down the road to happiness or disappointment. It’s just that we can’t always see where the road is leading us until we’re halfway there.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“I don't know--is happiness a thing we choose, I wonder? Or is it something handed out to some, and not to others?"
"A bit of both, I should think."
"...I'm not so sure... I think we all make choices in our lives that set us down the road to happiness or disappointment. It's just that we can't always see where the road is leading us until we're halfway there.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“That's how you have to read this book, you see. You wade through a few sentences, then stop and think about them, then wade through a few more.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“understanding something didn’t make it easier.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Even Austrian landladies recognise the hand of destiny at work.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Of course,” Armand was saying to Simon, “you know that it was an American, like yourself, who nearly ruined the wine-making in France?” “We’re Canadians.” “But that is the same thing, surely?”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“I had met death before, in different forms--I knew quite well the pattern of my grieving. First came shock, and then tears, and then a bitter anger, followed by a softer grief that time would wear away.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“I clung to him while, overhead, the clouds burst forth a final brilliant streak of golden red, as if the gates of heaven themselves had briefly opened, and closed again. My trembling stilled; the wind seemed to fall silent, and some weight I didn't fully understand, a melancholy ages old, was lifted from my sobbing chest and drifted like an answered prayer into the darkness.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Sometimes, the scales of justice find a level of their own, without our help... And sometimes, in seeking justice, we don't always serve it.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Well, it was over now, I thought. Time everyone forgot, forgave, let be.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“...he raised a hand to touch my face, a touch of promise, warm and sure, and as I struggled to smile back at him he kissed me. It felt so very right, so beautiful; tears pricked behind my lashes as life flowed through all my hollow limbs, and I lost all sense of place and time. It might have been a minute or an hour...”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“It was a thing intangible, yet clearly felt—the sense that time was moving round him, past him, leaving him untouched.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Hindsight, I thought, was like a punishment, remorseless in its clarity and painfully unable to change what had gone before. Turning”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“Flirtatious men I could handle. It was the serious ones, like Neil, who made me nervous—the ones who looked straight at you and spoke simply and had no use for games. Men like Neil, I thought, might talk of love and mean it, while flirtatious men demanded nothing, promised less, and never disappointed.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Splendour Falls
“IT’S THE neverness that is so painful. Never again to be here with us—never to sit with us at table, never to travel with us, never to laugh with us, never to cry with us, never to embrace us as he leaves for school, never to see his brothers and sister marry. All the rest of our lives we must live without him. Only our death can stop the pain of his death. A month, a year, five years—with that I could live. But not this forever. I step outdoors into the moist moldly fragrance of an early summer morning and arm in arm with my enjoyment comes the realization that never again will he smell this. As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so he who goes down to the grave does not return, He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more. JOB 7:9-10 One small misstep and now this endless neverness.”
― Nicholas Wolterstorff, quote from Lament for a Son
“Stories are like snapshots, pictures snatched out of time, with clean hard edges. But this was life, and life always begins and ends in a bloody muddle, womb to tomb, just one big mess, a can of worms left to rot in the sun.”
― James Crumley, quote from The Last Good Kiss
“Die christliche Sitte, träge aufrecht dazusitzen wie bei einer Unterhaltungsveranstaltung, deutet darauf hin, dass Gott als Unterhaltungskünstler gilt, der von der Bühne entfernt und durch eine andere Nummer ersetzt werden kann, wenn er nicht mehr unterhält.”
― John Updike, quote from Terrorist
“Holy Hell! That was totally badass”
― Shannon Delany, quote from 13 to Life
“…but now, along this high, rocky road, it was the leaves of cherry trees that predominated. From the bridge on, these lay like fallen red flowers. Some wet leaves, already decaying, had faded to a pink that was the color of the dawn. Why should decay take the color of the dawn?”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from Runaway Horses
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.