“I wanted my own words. But the ones I use have been dragged through I don't know how many consciences.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“I clung to nothing, in a way I was calm. But it was a horrible calm—because of my body; my body, I saw with its eyes, I heard with its ears, but it was no longer me; it sweated and trembled by itself and I didn’t recognize it any more.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“He loves me, he doesn't love my bowels, if they showed him my appendix in a glass he wouldn't recognize it, he's always feeling me, but if they put the glass in his hands he wouldn't touch it, he wouldn't think, "that's hers," you ought to love all of somebody, the esophagus, the liver, the intestines. Maybe we don't love them because we aren't used to them, but if we saw them the way we saw our hands and arms maybe we'd love them; the starfish must love each other better than we do.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“I had spent my time
counterfeiting eternity.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“I had spent my time counterfeiting eternity, I had understood nothing.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“No, my child, these things are impossible. It would have been better if she had recognize the truth courageously. She would have suffered once, then time would have erased with its sponge. There is nothing like looking things in the face, believe me.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“je prenais tout au sérieux, comme si j'avais été immortel.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Lucien thought with bitter pleasure that his parents found him looking fine. “I don’t exist.” He closed his eyes and let himself drift: existence is an illusion because I know I don t exist, all I have to do is plug my ears and not think about anything and I’ll become nothingness.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“İnsan, insanlara var olmadıklarını inandırmak için bir felsefe incelemesine güvenemezdi. Bunun bir eylem olması gerekiyordu, gerçekten öylesine umutsuz bir eylem ki görüntüleri silsin götürsündü ve dünyanın hiçliğini gün ışığına göstersindi.
Bir patlama, kan içinde genç bir beden halının üstünde, bir kağıda yazılmış sözcükler: Kendimi öldürüyorum, çünkü var değilim. Ve siz de insan kardeşlerim, hiçsiniz!”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Varlığı bir rezaletti ve daha sonra üstüne alacağı sorumluluklar bu rezaleti doğrulamaya yetecekti.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Į žmones reikia žiūrėti iš aukštai. Būdavo, užgesinu šviesą ir atsistoju prie lango: jie nė neįtaria, kad juos galima stebėti ir iš viršaus. Jie rūpinasi savo priekiu, kartais užpakaliu, bet visi jų triukai skirti metro setyniasdešimties centimetrų ūgio žiūrovui. O ar kas nors kada pagalvojo, kaip atrodo katiliuko formos kepurė žvelgiant iš septinto aukšto? <...> Vieną vakarą man toptelėjo mintis pašaudyti į žmones.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Antes de alguém viver, a vida, em si mesma, não é nada; é quem é a vive que deve dar-lhe um sentido; e o valor nada mais que constatar-se, assim, que é possível criar uma comunidade humana.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Before beginning this treatise, he wanted the advice of The Baboon, his philosophy prof. “Excuse me, sir,” he said at the end of a class, “could anyone claim that we don’t exist?” The Baboon said no. “Goghito,” he said, “ergo zum. You exist because you doubt your existence.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“I consented to die in his place; his life had no more value than mine; no life had value. They were going to slap a man up against a wall and shoot at him till he died, whether it was I or Gris or somebody else made no difference. I knew he was more useful than I to the cause of Spain but I thought to hell with Spain and anarchy; nothing was important.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Biz gümbürtüye gitmiş insanlarız," diyordu gururla, "biz hayatı ıskalayanlardanız. Hiçbir işe yaramayacağız.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, quote from The Wall
“Agape doesn't love somebody because they're worthy.
Agape makes them worthy by the strength and power of its love.
Agape doesn't love somebody because they're beautiful.
Agape loves in such a way that it makes them beautiful.”
― Rob Bell, quote from Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality
“Just being a good person doesn’t necessarily entitle you to a good life.”
― Susan Wiggs, quote from Just Breathe
“I have always had a suspicion that Aunt Dahlia, while invariably matey and bonhomous and seeming to take pleasure in my society, has a lower opinion of my intelligence than I quite like. Too often it is her practice to address me as ‘fathead’, and if I put forward any little thought or idea or fancy in her hearing it is apt to be greeted with the affectionate but jarring guffaw.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, quote from Very Good, Jeeves!
“There was a time—the year after leaving, even five years after when this homely street, with its old-fashioned high crown, its sidewalk blocks tugged up and down by maple roots, its retaining walls of sandstone and railings of painted iron and two-family brickfront houses whose siding imitates gray rocks, excited Rabbit with the magic of his own existence. These mundane surfaces had given witness to his life; this cup had held his blood; here the universe had centered, each downtwirling maple seed of more account than galaxies. No more. Jackson Road seems an ordinary street anywhere. Millions of such American streets hold millions of lives, and let them sift through, and neither notice nor mourn, and fall into decay, and do not even mourn their own passing but instead grimace at the wrecking ball with the same gaunt facades that have outweathered all their winters. However steadily Mom communes with these maples—the branches’ misty snake-shapes as inflexibly fixed in these two windows as the leading of stained glass—they will not hold back her fate by the space of a breath; nor, if they are cut down tomorrow to widen Jackson Road at last, will her staring, that planted them within herself, halt their vanishing. And the wash of new light will extinguish even her memory of them. Time is our element, not a mistaken invader. How stupid, it has taken him thirty-six years to begin to believe that.”
― John Updike, quote from Rabbit Redux
“Every few days the letters arrived, tattered and torn, from Lordsburg, New Mexico. Sometimes entire sentences had been cut out with a razor blade by the censors and the letters did not make any sense. Sometimes they arrived in one piece, but with half of the words blacked out. Always, they were signed, "From Papa, With Love.”
― Julie Otsuka, quote from When the Emperor Was Divine
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.