“Summer lightning made it seem that flickering white-hot wires were turning in the terribly blue sky just above the horizon, and the recent storms had driven in toward shore hundreds of gigantic Portuguese man-o'-wars that now hung below the surface of the water like big malignant pearls.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Stress of Her Regard
“Byron had drawn his pistol, and was looking closely at the leaves and dirt around him, as if he'd dropped something. "It's -- do keep calm now -- it's right over your head. I suppose you could look, if you can do it slowly."
Crawford felt drops of sweat run down his ribs under his shirt as he slowly forced the muscles of his neck to tilt his head up; he saw the upper slope, bristling with trees that obstructed a view of the road, and then he saw the outer branches of the tree he was braced against, and finally he gathered his tattered courage and looked straight up.
And it took all of his self-control not to recoil or scream, and he was distantly resentful that he couldn't just die in this instant.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Stress of Her Regard
“Is this Christian charity as it’s practiced in Bern?” He stood up, rapping his head against the low ceiling. “The Church has become a more … exclusive club since the founder’s day, it’s clear. No doubt the Devil is more hospitable.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Stress of Her Regard
“Newton must have been right when he’d said that light consisted of particles, for today he could feel them hitting him.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Stress of Her Regard
“Byron; and, realistically, quite a number of those infants will die without my care, and Josephine is hardly a creature with potential, hardly anybody’s idea of a tabula rasa, a blank slate—hell, she’s a slate that’s had bad math scrawled on it and then been waxed so that nothing can ever be written on it again. I’ve treated sheep that had more of a right to live.”
― Tim Powers, quote from The Stress of Her Regard
“Tesla, at least, seemed perfectly satisfied with what he had achieved in Colorado. He had made lightning dance at his command; he had used the whole Earth as a piece of laboratory equipment; and he had received messages from the stars. Now he was in a hurry to get on with the future.”
― quote from Tesla: Man Out of Time
“The world is your oyster...
...too bad you're allergic to shellfish.”
― Paul Neilan, quote from Apathy and Other Small Victories
“Όταν της τον έβγαλα ήταν πασαλειμμένος με σκατά κι εκείνη αηδίασε. Εγώ όχι. Εγώ είχα πάντα σε εγρήγορση τον κυνισμό, δεν κοιμόταν ποτέ. Το θέμα είναι ότι το σεξ δεν είναι για ανθρώπους με αναστολές. Το σεξ είναι ανταλλαγή υγρών, ρευστών, σάλιου, ανάσας και δυνατών μυρωδιών, ούρων, σπέρματος, σκατών, ιδρώτα, μικροβίων, βακτηρίων. Αλλιώς δεν είναι. Εάν είναι μόνο τρυφερότητα και αιθέρια πνευματικότητα, τότε περιορίζεται σε μια στείρα παρωδία του τι θα μπορούσε να είναι. Τίποτα.”
― Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, quote from Dirty Havana Trilogy
“I wish he hadn't gone and cut his hair.
He looks about eight years old.
His ears have tripled in size.
Everyone's started calling him Dumbo.
Which wouldn't be so bad,
except they've started calling me
Mrs. Dumbo.
You can't even tell
he's got curly hair anymore.
There's nothing left
to run my fingers through.
Just this weird
blond AstroTurf
sprouting out of his skull.”
― Sonya Sones, quote from What My Mother Doesn't Know
“While some male "admirers" of trans women tend to fetishize us for our femininity or our imagined sexual submissiveness, I find trans women hot because we are anything but docile or demure. In order to survive as a trans woman, you must be, by definition, impervious, unflinching, and tenacious. In a culture in which femaleness and femininity are on the receiving end of a seemingly endless smear campaign, there is no act more brave - especially for someone assigned a male sex at birth - than embracing one's femme self.
And unlike those male tranny-chasers who say that they like "T-girls" because we are supposedly "the best of both worlds", I am attracted to trans women because we are all woman! My femaleness is so intense that it has overpowered the trillions of lameass Y chromosomes that sheepishly hide inside the cells of my body. And my femininity is so relentless that it has survived over thirty years of male socialisation and twenty years of testosterone poisoning. Some kinky-identified thrill-seekers may envision trans women as androgyne fuck fantasies, but that's only because they are too self-absorbed to appreciate how completely fucking female we are.”
― Julia Serano, quote from Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity
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.