“You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“Even if you yourself were unhappy and anxious, whenever you glimpsed happiness in your child, you suddenly became happy too.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“It seemed that everywhere you went, people quickly adapted to the way they had to live, and called it Life.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“To be anorexic...she thought, amounted to wanting to shed yourself of some of the imperfect mosaic of pieces that made you who you were. She could understand that now for, maybe underneath that desquamated self you would locate a new version.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“But now the world, he thought, had taken them. He knew that this could suddenly happen. One day you just woke up, and there was somewhere that you needed to be.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“Your personal history of pain, by the time you reached the age of forty, was supposedto have been folded thoroughly into the batter of the self, so that you barely needed to acknowledge it anymore.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“Jill told him that he just didn't understand what it meant to have been so promising your whole life and now to be so disappointing in the end.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“When you lived a certain kind of life, pushed along by good colleges and internships and jobs and a shared, tranquil neighborhood and a world of privilege in which your child overlapped, you were inevitably part of a long chain of connections. All of them could help one another; the possibilities were there if they wanted them, though many of them didn't seem to want them anymore, or maybe they had somehow forgotten they had once wanted them.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“Maybe the idea of the supposed tension between working and nonworking mothers had been put out in the world just to cause divisiveness.”
― Meg Wolitzer, quote from The Ten-Year Nap
“Ոչինչ զարյացած մարդու համար այնքան տհաճ չէ, որքան այն, երբ նրա զայրույթին պատասխանում են լրիվ անտարբերությամբ։”
― Alexandre Dumas, quote from The Black Tulip
“Instead of getting the house like Mount Vernon, they had moved into the little house on Greentree Avenue in Westport, and Betsy had become pregnant, and he had thrown the vase against the wall, and the washing machine had broken down. And Grandmother had died and left her house to somebody, and instead of being made vice-president of J. H. Nottersby, Incorporated, he had finally arrived at a job where he tested mattresses, was uneasy when his boss said he wanted to see him without explaining why, and lived in fear of an elevator operator.”
― quote from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit
“B. How is Jesus able to understand our weaknesses? C. How is our great high priest different from us? 2. Read 1 John 4:9–11. A. How did God show his love for us? What was the purpose of this action (v. 9)? B. Why did Jesus come into this world, according to verse 10? C. What conclusion does John reach, based on what he has said in verses 9–10? 3. Read Hebrews 2:11–18. A. According to verse 11, what does Jesus call those he saves? Why does he call them this? B. What was the purpose for Jesus becoming human, according to verses 14–15? C. Why can Jesus fully understand any problem or challenge you face, according to verses 17–18? How does this make him the perfect helper for you? Battle Lines Spend some time thanking God for claiming you, saving you, and using you. Ask him to use you to bring others to him, and then look for ways to bless others as God has blessed you. Review the five stones with which you’ve been equipped to face your giants.”
― Max Lucado, quote from Facing Your Giants: God Still Does the Impossible
“Your mistake, indeed the mistake of your inherently finite senses, is to view the universe as an extension of yourself. You expect that, like you, it should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. but what you fail to understand is that everything you consider to be you, except for that rather silly imaginary part you call consciousness, is merely bits and pieces borrowed from the universe, and to the universe it will all return. You had no beginning, and you will have no ending. Everything that is you has always been and will always be.”
― quote from Monster
“Mr. Bloemker moved closer. He smelled like a wet diaper. “What is it,” he asked, looking over Lenore’s shoulder.
“If it’s what I think it is,” said Lenore, “it’s a sort of joke. A what do you call it. An antinomy.”
“An antinomy?”
Lenore nodded. “Gramma really likes antinomies. I think this guy here,” looking down at the drawing on the back of the label, “is the barber who shaves all and only those who do not shave themselves.”
Mr. Bloemker looked at her. “A barber?”
“The big killer question,” Lenore said to the sheet of paper, “is supposed to be whether the barber shaves himself. I think that’s why his head’s exploded, here.”
“Beg pardon?”
“If he does, he doesn’t, and if he doesn’t, he does.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from The Broom of the System
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.