“You remember the word we said when we pressed our hands together, right?"
I nodded. Forem. But what does it mean?"
"Forever,” he said his breath shaky. "It means we're bonded together forever.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“Everyone will hurt you if you let them in.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“I’m not sure I know how to feel happy yet. Well, I mean sometimes when I look at the stars I think I might feel happy…but”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“I mean, was there really a difference between death and losing every ounce of who you are?”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“The next thing I knew I was laying face first on the ground,”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“Forever,” he said, his breath shaky. “It means we’re bonded together forever.”
― Jessica Sorensen, quote from The Underworld
“Call them from their houses, and teach them to dream.”
― Jean Toomer, quote from Cane
“Beside himself with shame and despair, the utterly ruined though perfectly just Mr. Golyadkin dashed headlong away, wherever fate might lead him; but with every step he took, with every thud of his foot on the granite of the pavement, there leapt up as though out of the earth a Mr. Golyadkin precisely the same, perfectly alike, and of a revolting depravity of heart. And all these precisely similar Golyadkins set to running after one another as soon as they appeared, and stretched in a long chain like a file of geese, hobbling after the real Mr. Golyadkin, so there was nowhere to escape from these duplicates — so that Mr. Golyadkin, who was in every way deserving of compassion, was breathless with terror; so that at last a terrible multitude of duplicates had sprung into being; so that the whole town was obstructed at last by duplicate Golyadkins, and the police officer, seeing such a breach of decorum, was obliged to seize all these duplicates by the collar and to put them into the watch-house, which happened to be beside him . . . Numb and chill with horror, our hero woke up, and numb and chill with horror felt that his waking state was hardly more cheerful . . . It was oppressive and harrowing . . . He was overcome by such anguish that it seemed as though some one were gnawing at his heart.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Double
“Openness used to be the virtue that permitted us to seek the good by using reason.”
― Allan Bloom, quote from The Closing of the American Mind
“Surely, somewhere in the back of Bulfinch, in a part Lillian had not gotten to, there is an obscure (abstruse, arcane, shadowy, and even hidden) version of Proserpine in he Underworld in which a tired Jewish Ceres schleps through the outskirts of Tartarus, an ugly village of tired whores who must double as laundresses and barbers, a couple of saloons, a nearly empty five-and-dime, and people too poor to pull up stakes. In this version, Ceres looks all over town for her Proserpine, who crossed the River Cyane in a pretty sailboat with Pluto, having had the good sense to come to an understanding with the king early on. Pluto and Proserpine picnic in a charming park, twinkling lights overhead and handsome wide benches like the ones in Central Park. When Ceres comes, tripping a little on her hem as she walks through the soft grass, muttering and trying to yank Proserpine to her feet so they can start the long trip home to Enna and daylight (which has lost much of its luster, now that Proserpine is queen of all she surveys), the girl does not jump up at the sight of her mother, but takes her time handing out the sandwiches and pours cups of sweetened tea for the three of them. She lays a nicely ironed napkin in her lap and another in the lap of her new husband, the king. Proserpine does not eat the pomegranate seeds by mistake, or in a moment of desperate hunger, or fright, or misunderstanding. She takes the pomegranate slice out of her husband’s dark and glittering hand and pulls the seeds into her open, laughing mouth; she eats only six seeds because her mother knocks it out of her hand before she can swallow the whole sparkling red cluster.
“We have to get home,” Ceres says.
“I am home,” her daughter says.”
― Amy Bloom, quote from Away
“I have to get used to it—to her, but she's put a light in him so I think I'm going to be a fan."
"You're a stand-up gal, Swede."
"If she screws him up, I'll peel the skin off her ass with a dull razor blade.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Chasing Fire
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.
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