“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
A.S. Byatt
Born place: in Sheffield, Yorkshire, The United Kingdom
Born date August 24, 1936
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“Everyone was staring at
them, and for that reason she forced herself to smile and to act as though it was nothing at all to
be dragged across the room by a man she'd only just met. When she heard one woman whisper in
a loud voice that she and the Marquess made a striking couple, she lost her smile. Yes, she did
feel like hitting Lyon, but it was certainly uncomplimentary of the woman to make such a
remark.”
― Julie Garwood, quote from The Lion's Lady
“Era mortificante pensar que otro hombre había descubierto ese exótico aspecto de su belleza que a mí se me había pasado por alto. Supongo que los maridos no son tan observadores, porque miran a sus esposas de una manera invariable.”
― Jun'ichirō Tanizaki, quote from The Key
“وزلت قدمها أو كادت، فشدت عضلاتها بسرعة لتحفظ توازنها فتحرك رأسها حركة نافرة أطاحت بطرف الخمارعن وجهها فانطبع بتمامه على بصري غارسًا حسنه في أركان وجداني، فتلقيت في لحظةٍ عابرة رسالة طويلة مشحونة بكافة الرموز التي تقرر مصير قلب.”
― Naguib Mahfouz, quote from The Journey of Ibn Fattouma
“I had no idea that the gate I would step through to finally enter this world would be the space my brother’s body made.”
― Marie Howe, quote from What the Living Do: Poems
“I have built a city from the books I've read. A good book sings a a timeless music that is heard in the choir lofts, and balconies, and theaters that thrived within that secret city inside me.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from My Reading Life
A Fortune-Teller Tol...
The Lost Heiress
The Silent Waters
Arctic Dreams
A Short History of T...
The Hand That First...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.
