“Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.”
― David Brin, quote from The Uplift War
“But there is one more reason to protect other species. One seldom if ever mentioned. Perhaps we are the first to talk and think and build and aspire, but we may not be the last. Others may follow us in this adventure. Some day we may be judged by just how well we served, when alone we were Earth’s caretakers.”
― David Brin, quote from The Uplift War
“Someone once said that one measure of sentience was how much energy a sophont spent on matters other than survival. Fiben”
― David Brin, quote from The Uplift War
“The best means to an end are not always those that appear most direct.”
― David Brin, quote from The Uplift War
“If only I had a decent sense of humor Ah, well. Where subtlety fails us we must simply make do with cream pies.”
― David Brin, quote from The Uplift War
“KGB might have replaced the songoma in this Russian empire, where no citizen was allowed to believe in holy spirits except in great secrecy. It seemed to him that a society that attempted to put the gods to flight would be doomed. The nkosis know that in my homeland, and hence our gods have not been threatened by apartheid. They can live freely and have never been subjected to the pass laws; they have always been able to move around without being humiliated. If our holy spirits had been banished to remote prison islands, and our singing hounds chased out into the Kalahari Desert, not a single white man, woman or child would have survived in South Africa. All of them, Afrikaners as well as Englishmen, would have been annihilated long ago and their miserable skeletons buried in the red soil. In the old days, when his ancestors were still fighting openly against the white intruders, the Zulu warriors used to cut off their fallen victims’ lower jaw. An impi returning from a victorious battle would bring with him these jawbones as trophies to adorn the temple entrances of their tribal chiefs. Now it was the gods who were on the front line against the whites, and they would never submit to defeat. The first night in the strange”
― Henning Mankell, quote from The White Lioness
“I’m your brother. I love you, I’m right here. I’m here with you,” he gasped then roared, “Nobody can take that from you!”
― Lucian Bane, quote from No Mercy
“Together, Thomas and Teresa watched, and imagined what it must be like.”
― James Dashner, quote from The Fever Code
“She’d fought off her assailant. And in doing so, she’d displayed one of the seven virtues of bushidō: Courage. The way of the warrior. Mariko”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from Flame in the Mist
“But: all journeys were return journeys. The farther one traveled, the nakeder one got, until, towards the end, ceasing to be animated by any scene, one was most oneself, a man in a bed surrounded by empty bottles. The man who says, "I've got a wife and kids" is far from home; at home he speaks of Japan. But he does not know - how could he? - that the scenes changing in the train window from Victoria Station to Tokyo Central are nothing compared to the change in himself; and travel writing, which cannot but be droll at the outset, moves from journalism to fiction, arriving promptly as the Kodama Echo at autobiography. From there any further travel makes a beeline to confession, the embarrassed monologue in a deserted bazaar. The anonymous hotel room in a strange city...”
― Paul Theroux, quote from The Great Railway Bazaar
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.