“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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“There she is, lying in front of me, smoking a cigarette, thinking of something or someone else. And that’s how she is stuck in my mind forever.
We are two explorers in the dark. Mapless and hopeless. Alone together.”
― Pete Wentz, quote from Gray
“We should run too great a risk of losing everything by our vain imaginations if God were to give us, at once, all the perfection we desired. The inordinate love of our own excellence would carry us to as high a flight as Lucifer, but only like him, to fall into the abyss of pride. God, who knows our weakness in this respect, allows us to grovel like worms in the mud of our imperfections, until He finds us capable of being raised without feeling any foolish self-satisfaction, or any contempt of others.”
― quote from Abandonment to Divine Providence: The Classic Text with a Spiritual Commentary
“In Narnia a girl might ring a bell in a deserted temple and feel the chime in her eyes, pure as the freeze that forces tears. Then when the sound dies out, the White Witch wakes. It was like, I want to touch you, and I can touch you, now what next, a dagger?”
― Helen Oyeyemi, quote from White is for Witching
“I get it now, Suze. I really do. I know what I had, what I lost, how I felt without it.” He brought her hand to his lips. “Do you know I still look for you in the stadium where you always used to sit? Whenever we scored this season, I’d look for you, wanting to share it with you. It was like losing you all over again every time I looked for you and you weren’t there”
― Marie Force, quote from Line of Scrimmage
“I guess when you expect the worst it’s always a pleasant surprise if everything ends up going smoothly.”
― Karina Halle, quote from Dead Sky Morning
Inkdeath
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The Dragon RebornBookQuoters 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.
