“You speak English beautifully, which means you can't be English.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“It is amazing how full a life a man can lead without for one moment being alive at all, except sometimes when sleeping.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“Enchanted islands are hard to understand,' he said. 'I've always thought that. It worried me even as a child. The trouble is that you can never be sure where the enchantment begins and where it ends.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“Dreams, [...], are misleading, because they make life seem real. When it loses the support of dreams, life dissolves.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“No milk. It is black coffee, pure but strong, that fortifies against the powers of darkness with which the world is filled.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“Things mechanical are like the ladies,’ continued Toby. ‘You need to understand their ways. If you understand them, they’ll do what you want from the start. If you don’t, they’ve got you. And then God help you.”
― Robert Aickman, quote from The Wine-Dark Sea
“أشفق يا رب وشدد جميع الأجنحة المتكسرة”
― Kahlil Gibran, quote from The Broken Wings
“Just because a marriage ended didn't mean that it hadn't been happy at times.”
― Liane Moriarty, quote from What Alice Forgot
“The pathway to hell was paved with good intentions, but what about the wrongs committed for the right reasons? Were they included as well? Life had taught him that anything that starts wrong, ends wrong. In this case, he supposed that only time and its unpredictable mercies would tell. - Percy”
― Leila Meacham, quote from Roses
“There were some that were of so rare a beauty that my pleasure on catching sight of them was enhanced by surprise. By what privilege, on one morning rather than another, did the window on being uncurtained disclose to my wondering eyes the nymph Glauconome, whose lazy beauty, gently breathing, had the transparence of a vaporous emerald beneath whose surface I could see teeming the ponderable elements that coloured it? She made the sun join in her play, with a smile rendered languorous by an invisible haze which was nought but a space kept vacant about her translucent surface, which, thus curtailed, became more appealing, like those goddesses whom the sculptor carves in relief upon a block of marble, the rest of which he leaves unchiselled. So, in her matchless colour, she invited us out over those rough terrestrial roads, from which, seated beside Mme. de Villeparisis in her barouche, we should see, all day long and without ever reaching it, the coolness of her gentle palpitation.”
― Marcel Proust, quote from In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
“The sun is simple. A sword is simple. A storm is simple. Behind everything simple is a huge tail of complicated.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from I Shall Wear Midnight
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.