“Everything was temporary; she understood that now. All of this was temporary. It would all be snatched away. It was all on loan. Even the people we love. They were all on loan. One day you see their face across a rickety table or you pass them hurrying from here to there, or you see them leave you in your bed, and their profile passes you by...and you don't know...your thoughts somewhere else. And then they are snatched away forever and you did not know to say goodbye. You did not know.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“But then it came to her…just change your mind about it. About everything. Shit. That was it. "What an idiot she was. It was that simple. Just decide to stop struggling and embrace it all as a gift. And in a single second, everything is different.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“Life’s going to do that to you missy. Gonna upset your wagon, not just once but many times. And you got to choose who’s sitting next to you. Someone you can trust…or not.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“Friendship, true friendship is a curious dance. Why does one recognize and embrace one soul and yet not another. What is that? That something unspoken. Perhaps it is a long ago remembrance of another time, another place, those same familiar eyes shining out. Always we are searching for those recognizable eyes…so that we might at last be recognized ourselves.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“That the woman in her had died in anguish and a vengeful man had been born in her place apparently brooked no notice of the universe. Nor had the universe even blinked in the absorption into itself of her tragedy.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“Here’s to being single…drinking doubles…and seeing triple!”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“reminded me of a quote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—“life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“as Shakespeare wrote, “What a piece of work is a man…”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“read aloud from Emerson: Be true to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, “Always do what you are afraid to do.” A simple manly character need never make an a-po-lo-gy…”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“It’s true that we’re all children disguised as adults…When age and illness embrace our body…when disease and pain overcome, our eternal youth within begins raging, stamping, praying. Please dear God who lays me down to sleep…an awful mistake has been made…I was just now learning to feel safe beneath this fragile skin, trust within this prison cell. Just now my eyes are open to the world…Just now I feel the earth beneath my feet.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“It was so strange, she thought, these moments we pray for; they happen so quick and then they’re gone. “Just like that,” Charley said out loud.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“First class passengers, stay where you are,” she yelled. “Second class, get out and walk. Third class, get down and push.”
― Karen Kondazian, quote from The Whip
“Bashir paused to watch a live CNN feed... Bashir was struck silent by the images of wailing Iraqi women carrying children's bodies out of the rubble of a bombed building.
As he studied the screen, Bashir's bullish shoulders slumped. "People like me are America's best friends in the region," Bashir said at last shaking his head ruefully, "I'm a moderate Msulim, an educated man. But watching this, even I could become a jihadi. How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?" Bashir asked, struggling not to direct his anger toward the large American target on the other side of the desk. "Your president Bush had done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years.”
― Greg Mortenson, quote from Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace ... One School at a Time
“Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.”
― Anne Rice, quote from The Witching Hour
“I love you, Gideon.”
“God.” He looked at me with something that resembled disgust. Whether it was directed at me or himself, I didn’t know. “How can you say that?”
“Because it’s the truth.”
“You just see this”—he gestured at himself with a wave of his hand. “You’re not seeing the fucked-up, broken mess inside.”
I inhaled sharply. “You can say that to me? When you know I’m fucked up and broken, too?”
― Sylvia Day, quote from Bared to You
“Kant thought things, not because they were true, but because he was Kant.”
― W. Somerset Maugham, quote from Of Human Bondage
“That's what education should be," I said, "the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way.”
― Plato, quote from The Republic
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.
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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.