“Nothing had happened to me. I was born with a defective mind. As my father’s sole contribution to my life knifed its way into my mother’s egg, it unleashed a faulty genetic code that warped the normal brain development of fetus me, growing wrong inside my mother. I was a thing that should never have been.”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“Years of best-friendness, sisterhood, reduced to a complete communication blackout.”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“But no, there he is, voluntarily chatting away, asking me if I watch some zombie show. I don’t. (Those shows aren’t all that appealing when you relate more to the zombies than the humans.)”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“And someone who has never felt it can never understand what the absence of emotion feels like. It is a hopelessness of incomprehensible, unspeakable weight.”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“And before you make that decision to confide, you need to evaluate the friend and the relationship. Have they proved themselves worthy of you?”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“The world turned upside down - in a good way - for one black velvet night.”
― Karen Fortunati, quote from The Weight of Zero
“Lost are we, and are only so far punished,
That without hope we live on in desire.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from The Divine Comedy
“There was a tale he had read once, long ago, as a small boy: the story of a traveler who had slipped down a cliff, with man-eating tigers above him and a lethal fall below him, who managed to stop his fall halfway down the side of the cliff, holding on for dear life. There was a clump of strawberries beside him, and certain death above him and below. What should he do? went the question.
And the reply was, Eat the strawberries.
The story had never made sense to him as a boy. It did now.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from American Gods
“Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan
“This scent had a freshness, but not the freshness of limes or pomegranates, not the freshness of myrrh or cinnamon bark or curly mint or birch or camphor or pine needles, not that of a May rain or a frosty wind or of well water... and at the same time it had warmth, but not as bergamot, cypress, or musk has, or jasmine or daffodils, not as rosewood has or iris... This scent was a blend of both, of evanescence and substance, not a blend, but a unity, although slight and frail as well, and yet solid and sustaining, like a piece of thin, shimmering silk... and yet again not like silk, but like pastry soaked in honey-sweet milk - and try as he would he couldn't fit those two together: milk and silk! This scent was inconceivable, indescribable, could not be categorized in any way - it really ought not to exist at all. And yet there it was as plain and splendid as day.”
― Patrick Süskind, quote from Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
“It's all rot that they put in the war-news about the good humour of the troops, how they are arranging dances almost before they are out of the front-line. We don't act like that because we are in a good humour: we are in a good humour because otherwise we should go to pieces.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from All Quiet on the Western Front
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.