Quotes from The Stolen Child

Keith Donohue ·  327 pages

Rating: (10.2K votes)


“As I let go of the past, the past let go of me. ”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“I am gone and am not coming back, but I remember everything.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“The children will need new stories and fairy tales to see them through their nightmares and daydreams, to transfigure their sorrows and fears at not being able to remain children forever.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“To lose one’s name is the beginning of forgetting.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“Memory, which so confounds our waking life with anticipation and regret, may well be our one earthly consolation when time slips out of joint.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child



“It's only a story.' As if such words made it less real. But I did not believe him even then, for stories were written down, and the words on the page were proof enough. Fixed and permanent in time, the words, if anything, made the people and places more real than the everchanging world.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“I beg you to understand and accept that no matter what name, I am what I am.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“Allure goes beyond appearances to the way they grace the world. Some women propel themselves by means of an internal gyroscope. Others glide through life as if on ice skates. Some women convey their tortured lives through their eyes; others encircle you in the music of their laughter.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“Between the covers a book can be a sin. I have spent many hours in search of a waking dream. And once having learned to read, I couldn’t imagine my life otherwise. The indifferent children around me didn’t share my enthusiasm for the written word. Some might sit for a good story while told, but if a book had no pictures they showed scant interest.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“I would not want to be a child again, for a child exists in uncertainty and danger. Our flesh and blood, we cannot help but fear for them, as we hope for them to make their way in this life.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child



“O que a memória perde, a imaginação volta a criar.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“Between the covers, a book can be a sin.”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


“In setting down these recollections of my early years so far removed from their unfolding, I am fooled, as all are, by time itself. My parents, long gone from my world, live again. Memory, which so confounds our waking life with anticipation and regret, may well be our one true earthly consolation when time slips out of joint." Chapter 6, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue

"Assembled in a small circle, our faces glowed in the flickering light of the campfire, signs of anxious weariness in our tired eyes, but the meal would prove revitalizing. As the fire burnt down and our bellies filled, a calm complacency settled upon us, like a blanket drawn around our shoulders by absent mothers." Chapter 20, The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue”
― Keith Donohue, quote from The Stolen Child


About the author

Keith Donohue
Born place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The United States
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Popular quotes

“There is all the pleasure that one can have in golddigging in finding one’s hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.”
― Sarah Orne Jewett, quote from The Country of the Pointed Firs


“There are no truths, only stories.”
― quote from Stray


“All the great groups that stood about the Cross represent in one way or another the great historical truth of the time; that the world could not save itself. Man could do no more. Rome and Jerusalem and Athens and everything else were going down like a sea turned into a slow cataract. Externally indeed the ancient world was still at its strongest; it is always at that moment that the inmost weakness begins. But in order to understand that weakness we must repeat what has been said more than once; that it was not the weakness of a thing originally weak. It was emphatically the strength of the world that was turned to weakness and the wisdom of the world that was turned to folly.

In this story of Good Friday it is the best things in the world that are at their worst. That is what really shows us the world at its worst. It was, for instance, the priests of a true monotheism and the soldiers of an international civilisation. Rome, the legend, founded upon fallen Troy and triumphant over fallen Carthage, had stood for a heroism which was the nearest that any pagan ever came to chivalry. Rome had defended the household gods and the human decencies against the ogres of Africa and the hermaphrodite monstrosities of Greece. But in the lightning flash of this incident, we see great Rome, the imperial republic, going downward under her Lucretian doom. Scepticism has eaten away even the confident sanity of the conquerors of the world. He who is enthroned to say what is justice can only ask:

‘What is truth?’ So in that drama which decided the whole fate of antiquity, one of the central figures is fixed in what seems the reverse of his true role. Rome was almost another name for responsibility. Yet he stands for ever as a sort of rocking statue of the irresponsible. Man could do no more. Even the practical had become the impracticable. Standing between the pillars of his own judgement-seat, a Roman had washed his hands of the world.”
― G.K. Chesterton, quote from The Everlasting Man


“owned zoo in an occupied country. Military”
― Lawrence Anthony, quote from Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo


“Сърцето му хлопа като ръка, хлопаща по врата, която никой не отваря. Вратата на смелостта, която тази нощ не се отваря за него.”
― Margaret Mazzantini, quote from Twice Born


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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.