“And indeed there will be time for the yellow smoke that slides along the street rubbing its back upon the window-panes; there will be time , there will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; there will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate; time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of toast and tea.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“Fading, fading: strength beyond hope and despair climbing the third stair. Lord, I am not worthy Lord, I am not worthy but speak the word only.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“O perpetual revolution of configured stars, o perpetual recurrence of determined seasons, o world of spring and autumn, birth and dying! The endless cycle of idea and action, endless invention, endless experiment, brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; knowledge of speech, but not of silence; knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word. All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, all our ignorance brings us nearer to death, but nearness to death no nearer to God. Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“After such knowledge, what forgiveness? Think now
History has many cunning passages, contrived corridors
And issues, deceives with whispering ambitions,
Guides us by vanities. Think now
She gives when our attention is distracted
And what she gives, gives with such supple confusions
That the giving famishes the craving. Gives too late
What’s not believed in, or if still believed,
In memory only, reconsidered passion. Gives too soon
Into weak hands, what’s thought can be dispensed with
Till the refusal propagates a fear. Think
Neither fear nor courage saves us. Unnatural vices
Are fathered by our heroism. Virtues
Are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“Think neither fear nor courage saves us.
Unnatural vices are fathered by our heroism.
Virtues are forced upon us by our impudent crimes.
These tears are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“This form, this face, this life living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken, the awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“I that was near your heart was removed therefrom”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices in the lost lilac and the lost sea voices and the weak spirit quickens to rebel for the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell quickens to recover.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“We see the light but see not whence it comes. O Light Invisible, we glorify Thee!”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“There is no water, so things are bad. If there were water, it would be better. But there is no water.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
T.S. Eliot
Born place: in St. Louis, Missouri, The United States
Born date September 26, 1888
See more on GoodReads
“The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes.
We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly.
My mother is going to look like that.
My mother is going to have a baby.
My brain still can’t process this.
Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face.
She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.”
The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving.
I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring.
She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly.
Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl.
“Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?”
“I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say.
“This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching.
Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude.
Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to.
“He says hi,” the woman says.
I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail.
I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail.
Four months.
The elevator dings.
“Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead.
I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks?
“Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink.
The elevator closes and she’s gone”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Alkimist
“For the machine meant the conquest of horizontal space. It also meant a sense of that space which few people had experienced before – the succession and superimposition of views, the unfolding of landscape in flickering surfaces as one was carried swiftly past it, and an exaggerated feeling of relative motion (the poplars nearby seeming to move faster than the church spire across the field) due to parallax. The view from the train was not the view from the horse. It compressed more motifs into the same time. Conversely, it left less time in which to dwell on any one thing.”
― Robert Hughes, quote from The Shock of the New
“Perhaps nothing speaks more eloquently of the variability of spelling in the age than the fact that a dictionary published in 1604, A Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words, spelled “words” two ways on the title page.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Shakespeare: The World as Stage
“Nature doesn’t know the concept of philosophy, Geralt of Rivia. The pathetic – ridiculous – attempts which people undertake to try to understand nature are typically termed philosophy. The results of such attempts are also considered philosophy.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Time of Contempt
Behind Her Eyes
The Butterfly Projec...
The Book of Merlyn
Manners & Mutiny
The Millionaire Fast...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.
