“Life is dangerous. That's what makes it interesting.”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“Every new experience is unusual. The rest of life is just sleep and committee meetings.”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“Human beings have an almost unlimited capacity for self-delusion. We can justify any amount of sadness if it fits our own particular standard of reality. ”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“You don´t need to watch everyone if everyone believes they're beeing watched. (...) Punishment isn't necessary, but the inevitability of punishment has to be programmed into the brain.”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“No one seems to realize how immense consciousness really is. It ties us to the rest of the universe.”
― John Twelve Hawks, quote from The Traveler
“No hay peor pérdida de tiempo que la de contar las horas ¿que se consigue con eso? Y no hay mayor quimera que quererse gobernar a golpe de campana y no por la razón y el buen sentido.”
― François Rabelais, quote from Gargantua and Pantagruel
“The question that lingers is, how much was I a factor in my own survival, and how much was science, and how much miracle?
I don't have the answer to that question. Other people look to me for the answer, I know. But if I could answer it, we would have the cure for cancer, and what's more, we would fathom the true meaning of our existences. I can deliver motivation, inspiration, hope, courage, and counsel, but I can't answer the unknowable. Personally, I don't need to try. I 'm content with simply being alive to enjoy the mystery.
Good Joke:
A man is caught in a flood, and as the water rises he climbs to the roof of his house and waits to be rescued. A guy in a motorboat comes by, and he says, "Hop in, I'll save you."
"No thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."
But the floodwaters keep rising. A few minutes later, a rescue plane flies overhead and the pilot drops a line.
"No, thanks," the man on the rooftop says. "My Lord will save me."
But the floodwaters rise ever higher, and finally, they overflow the roof and the man drowns.
When he gets to heaven, he confronts God.
"My Lord, why didn't you save me?" he implores.
"You idiot," God says. "I sent a boat, I sent you a plane."
I think in a way we are all just like the guy on the rooftop. Things take place, there is a confluence of events and circumstances, and we can't always know their purpose, or even if there is one. But we can take responsibility for ourselves and be brave.”
― Lance Armstrong, quote from It's Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
“I think how hope may be the thing that pulls you forward, may be the thing that keeps you going, but that it’s dangerous, too, that it’s painful and risky, that it’s making a dare to the world and when has the world ever let us win a dare?”
― Patrick Ness, quote from Chaos Walking: A Trilogy
“Everything was damp and rife and hot as though the jungle were an immense collection of oily rags growing hotter and hotter under the dark stifling vaults of a huge warehouse. Heat licked at everything, and the foliage, responding, grew to prodigious sizes. In the depths, in the heat and the moisture, it was never silent. The birds cawed, the small animals and occasional snakes rustled and squealed, and beneath it all was a hush, almost palpable, in which could be heard the rapt absorbed sounds of vegetation growing.”
― Norman Mailer, quote from The Naked and the Dead
“things were far from normal. They weren’t even close.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Fallen Star
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.