“Lists are a form of power.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“...it is not possible to create the opposite of what one has always known, simply because the opposite is believed to be desired. Human beings need what they already know, even horrors.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“There was a moment during this time, when his face was on hers, cheek on cheek, brow on brow, heavy skull on skull, through soft skin and softer flesh. He thought: skulls separate people. In this one sense, I could say, they would say, I lose myself in her. But in that bone box, she thinks and thinks, as I think in mine, things the other won't hear, can't hear, though we go on like this for sixty years. What does she think I am? He had no idea. He had no idea what she was.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“A metamorphosis... The shining butterfly of the soul from the pupa of the body. Larva, pupa, imago. An image of art.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“Those words . . . national and portrait. They were both to do with identity: the identity of a culture (place, language and history), the identity of an individual human being as an object for mimetic representation.”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“Contemporary' was in those days [1953] synonymous with 'modern' as it had not been before and is not now [1977].”
― A.S. Byatt, quote from The Virgin in the Garden
“From the day we're born to the day we die, we fucking hurt and we cry and we pick ourselves up and, if we're really lucky, we have people to help us pick up the fucking pieces”
― Carmen Jenner, quote from Welcome to Sugartown
“Koca Ahmet bu daglarda bir destandi. Analar, aglayan cocuklarini Koca Ahmet geliyor diye avuturlardi. Koca Ahmet bir destan oldugu kadar bir sevgiydi de. Koca Ahmet bu iki duyguyu yillar yili bu daglarda yan yana goturebilmisti. Bunun ikisini bir arada goturemezse bir eskiya, daglarda bir yildan fazla yasayamaz. Eskiyayi korkuyla sevgi yasatir. Yalniz sevgi tek basina zayiftir. Yalniz korkuysa kindir.”
― Yaşar Kemal, quote from Memed, My Hawk
“There was nothing I wished I'd said to him. There was nothing I wished I hadn't said.”
― C.J. Flood, quote from Infinite Sky
“I have no desire to sleep with you. I want to fuck you. And there is no such thing as perfectly good sex. If it’s “perfectly good,” I mock in falsetto, “he should be shot in the head and put out of everyone’s misery. Sex either blows your fucking mind, or it’s not good enough. You want me to blow your fucking mind, Ms. Lane? Come on. Do it. Be a big girl.”
― Karen Marie Moning, quote from The Alpha Alternative: JZB Sex Scene
“She never saw the point of making fun of strangers – how could you possibly know enough about them to hit below the belt?”
― Daniel Marks, quote from Velveteen
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.