“The calendar was a mathematical progression with arbitrary surprises.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation today, next year die, and their experience with them.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“As children we accept magic as a normal part of life. Everything seems rooted in it, everything conspires in magic terms.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“Walls, windows, roof, verandah–entirely commonplace, mean even–moved her with the austere poetry of their function. Here a man sheltered from and diminished the horror and vulgarity of the world by the simplicity of his arrangements for living in it.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“the one thing to which the human spirit could always accommodate itself was chaos and misfortune.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“The world exists for the education of each man. There is no age or state of society, or mode of action in history, to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life. Everything tends in a most wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him. He should see that he can live all history in his own person. He must sit at home with might and main, and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the governments of the world . . .”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“When he got to the shoe putting-on stage he called Hosain again. Putting on and taking off his own shoes and boots were activities at which he drew the line if there was a man available to perform these services. He had learned to draw the line in Muzzafirabad where his first CO, Colonel Gawstone, advised him never to stoop if he could help it. The climate wasn't right for it. Mrs. Gawstone had stooped to pick up a glove and keeled right over and never got up. They had buried her the next day.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Towers of Silence
Paul Scott
Born place: in Southgate, London, The United Kingdom
Born date March 25, 1920
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“It is impossible to say why we love something or someone. We can come up with reasons if we have to, but the important part happens in the dark, beyond our control. We just know when it is there. And when it goes away.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Little Star
“Yo! Jotunn!" he shouted at the giant.
"Yo?" Reyna choked on a laugh. "Please tell me that's an ancient Norse word, and you're not going to start rapping."
He may have made a rude gesture, but if ever called on it, he would claim he'd simply motioned for her to be quiet while he got the giant's attention.”
― K.L. Armstrong, quote from Thor's Serpents
“Scratch your flesh raw between your toes, but you won't find the answer.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Complete Short Stories
“as he had? An abby streaked into the clearing. Then another. And another. A fourth. Fifth. No more. Please. No—A group of five joined the others. Then ten more. Soon there were twenty-five of them milling around the boulders in the shadow of that cliff. His heart fell. He crawled back”
― Blake Crouch, quote from Wayward
“Any flesh or fluid from any beast was eligible for ingestion, be it blood, skin, gristle, or worse. While touring a church once, Buckland startled a local vicar—who was showing off the miraculous “martyr’s blood” that dripped from the rafters every night—by dropping to the stone floor and dabbing the stain with his tongue. Between laps Buckland announced, “It’s bat urine.” Overall Buckland found few animals he couldn’t stomach: “The taste of mole was the most repulsive I knew,” he once mused. “Until I tasted a bluebottle [fly].”*”
― Sam Kean, quote from The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
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Groundwork of the Me...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.
