Quotes from The Twenty-One Balloons

180 pages

Rating: (19.4K votes)


“Half of this story is true and the other half might very well have happened.”
― quote from The Twenty-One Balloons


“The best way of travel, however, if you aren't in any hurry at all, if you don't care where you are going, if you don't like to use your legs, if you don't want to be annoyed at all by any choice of directions, is in a balloon. In a balloon, you can decide only when to start, and usually when to stop. The rest is left entirely to nature.”
― quote from The Twenty-One Balloons


“It seems strange to me that mechanical progress always seems to leave the slower demands of elegance far behind.”
― quote from The Twenty-One Balloons


“That's the peculiar thing about nature," explained Mr. F., "it guards it's rarest treasures with greatest care.”
― quote from The Twenty-One Balloons


Popular quotes

“The SET-UP system evolved as a structured framework of communication with the borderline in crisis. During such times, communication with the borderline is hindered by his impenetrable, chaotic internal force field, characterized by three major feeling states: terrifying aloneness, feeling misunderstood, and overwhelming helplessness. As a result, concerned individuals are often unable to reason calmly with the borderline and instead are forced to confront outbursts of rage, impulsive destructiveness, self-harming threats or gestures, and unreasonable demands for caretaking. SET-UP responses can serve to address the underlying fears, dilute the borderline conflagration, and prevent a “meltdown” into greater conflict.”
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― Michael Lewis, quote from The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game


“it would have been so stupid, Niki went on, If you would just accepted everything the way it was and just stayed where you were. At least you made an effort.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, quote from A Pale View of Hills


“Writers—particularly storytellers like myself—write about people. That is ironic, since we actually know nothing about them. Think about it. Why does someone become a writer? Is it because they like people? Of course not. Why else would we seek out a job where we get to spend all day, every day, cooped up in our basement with no company besides paper, a pencil, and our imaginary friends? Writers hate people. If you’ve ever met a writer, you know that they’re generally awkward, slovenly individuals who live beneath stairwells, hiss at those who pass, and forget to bathe for weeklong periods. And those are the socially competent ones.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from Alcatraz Versus the Scrivener's Bones


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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.