“First, he says, you have to go out into the world. This is not a simple matter of going outside one's door. No, that is simply going out. That's what one does when one is on the way to the store to buy a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a bottle of wine. When one goes out into the world, one is shedding preconceptions of past paths and ideas of past paths, and trying to move freely through an unsubstantiated and new geography.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“--Let us make a pact, she said. To madness at every juncture!”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“The old man began to sing. His voice was very lovely and obviously a part of something that the world had disposed of in its haste, evidence of a grander, kinder past.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“I mean that the book had better make life better better in at least six or seven definite ways immediately. Also, there had better be somewhere in it a method for handling fortune and chance so as to best provoke the most complicated, involved, and glorious refractions of what's possible.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“The old man took out an extraordinarily beautiful and elegant handkerchief and gave it to her to dry her tears. It was the sort of handkerchief that one might be content to be judged by if it was all that remained of one after one's death.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“The old man sang for a while, and Mora felt in her head the beginning of a long siege. A wilderness had crept up around a walled town, and the darkness of old woods and far-off places began to grow then, even within sight of where men walked together.
By this she meant in her heart that all the useless things one remembers well just before waking and forgets just after were in fact very important and perhaps all that stood now between herself and oblivion.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
“It is for this girl that the young man is looking. Day after day he wakes in morning and goes searching for her. In his work, and in his life on mornings that are not miraculous and afternoons that are sundry and various, he saves the corners of his eyes for her, and watches at all times the entrances and exits of every establishment to which he comes. For he knows that eventually, in time and given some protracted period of days, weeks, and months, he will come up on her, and know her in an instant for who she is.”
― Jesse Ball, quote from The Way Through Doors
Jesse Ball
Born place: in The United States
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“You've seen Star Wars?'
'Seen it and denounced it.'
'You've denounced Star Wars?'
She looked me straight in the eye and said, 'Hollywood should not glorify witches.'
'I think you've missed the point...'
'I also denounced Harry Potter.'
'Really?'
'Yes.'
'Because...'
'...because literature, especially children's literature, should not glorify witches.'
'Oda, what do you do for fun?'
She thought about it, then said, without a jot of humour, 'I denounce things.”
― Kate Griffin, quote from The Midnight Mayor
“as I said,I believe in fate.Things happen as they are meant to be.We just have to recognize our destiny.”
― Edward Rutherfurd, quote from Russka: the Novel of Russia
“They are all negros. And the Fascists won’t be called black because of their racial pride, so they are called White after the White Russians. And the Bolsheviks want to be called Black because of their racial pride. So when you say black you mean red, and when you mean red you say white and when the party who call themselves blacks say traitors they mean what we call blacks, but what we mean when we say traitors I really couldn’t tell you. But from your point of view it will be quite simple. Lord Copper only wants patriot victories and both sides call themselves patriots, and of course both sides will claim all the victories. But, of course, it’s really a war between Russia and Germany and Italy and Japan who are all against one another on the patriotic side. I hope I make myself plain?”
― Evelyn Waugh, quote from Scoop
“Psalms 127:1." Slowly, Eaton leafed through the book, and then he said, "Is this it? 'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.”
― Irving Wallace, quote from The Man
“When the reader has stopped to wonder at your delamificatious vocabulary, or, worse, when the reader has stopped because the word you've used has no more meaning to him than a random ptliijnbvc of letters, the reader is not involved in your story. ... Generally, saying 'edifice' instead of 'building' doesn't tell your reader anything about the building; it tells the reader that you know that word edifice.”
― Howard Mittelmark, quote from How Not to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them—A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide
A Christmas Memory
Alvin Journeyman
The Awful Rowing Tow...
No Doubt About It
Lament for a Son
The Last Good KissBookQuoters 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.
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