“If snow melts down to water, does it still remember being snow?”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Madness is always a wonderful excuse, don’t you think? For doing terrible things to other people.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“we all do what we think is best. Sometimes we make terrible mistakes, sometimes we do the right thing. Sometimes we never know. We just have to hope”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Q: Bury deep, Pile on stones, Yet I will Dig up the bones. What am I? A: Memories — A FOLK RIDDLE”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“She was his great adventure; his love for her had taken him places he'd never dreamed of going.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“How can you dream if you don’t have a soul?”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“And, as in all fairy tales, there was bloodshed, there was loss.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Young Reverend Ayers looks at a lake and sees only his own reflection in it; that is what God is to him. He does not see the creatures that live down deep, the dragonflies that hover, the frog on the lily pad.” Auntie’s face was full of pity and scorn as she shook her head and spat tobacco juice again. “His heart and mind are closed to the true beauty of the lake, the place where all its magic lies.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Here she was at eight, with the chemistry set she’d begged for at Christmas. Her father was beside her in this one, showing her a picture of the periodic table, explaining how everything on earth, everything in the universe, even—people, starfish, cement, bicycles, and far-off planets—was made up of a combination of these elements. “Isn’t it amazing to think of, Ruthie?” he’d asked. Ruthie had found the idea that we were only a series of neatly constructed puzzle pieces or building blocks vaguely unsettling—even at eight, she wanted there to be more to it than that.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“I think people see what they want to see... But think about it: if you'd lost someone you love, wouldn't you give almost anything to have the chance to see them again?”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Tracer was a good guy, but Ruthie didn’t understand how one individual could smoke the amount of pot he did and still function.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Q: Bury deep, Pile on stones, Yet I will Dig up the bones. What am I?
A: Memories — A FOLK RIDDLE”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Чтобы найти потерянную вещь, – сказала она однажды, – нужно просто обыскать все места, где её нет.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Each photo is like a novel I can never open, Gary had explained once. I can hold it in my hand and only begin to imagine what's inside -- the lives these people might have led. Sometimes if there was a little clue on the photo - a name, date, or place - he'd try to research it...”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“What exactly is it you'd like to know? [the book store manager asked]. He had an odd expression, like he was asking her a trick question. [Katherine] thought a minute. What DID she want to know? Why had she taken the trouble to come out in the cold to learn about a woman she'd never heard of until yesterday? She had that feeling she got when she was doing her art and suddenly discovered the missing piece that ties everything together: a tingling in the back of her neck, a crazy buzzed-rush of a feeling that spread through her whole body. She didn't understand the role that Sara Harrison Shea, the ring Gary had given her, or the book he had hidden would play, but she knew that this was important, and that she had to give herself over to it and see where it might lead.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“She’d carried him home, pulled the buckshot pellets out of him, stitched him up, and nursed him back to health. He’d been by her side ever since. “He was lucky you found him,” I said after hearing the story. “Luck had nothing to do with it,” Auntie told me. “He and I were meant for one another.” I never saw such devotion in a dog—or any animal, for that matter. His wounds had healed, but the buckshot left him blind in his right eye, which was milky white. His ghost eye, Auntie called it. “He came so close to death, he’s got one eye back there still,” she explained. I loved Buckshot, but I hated that milky-white moon that seemed to see everything and nothing all at once.”
― Jennifer McMahon, quote from The Winter People
“Meanwhile, time is one of our most scarce resources. At the moment, you are reading instead of working, playing with the dog, applying to law school, shopping for groceries, or having sex. Life is about trade-offs, and so is economics.”
― Charles Wheelan, quote from Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science
“Scientists often invent words to fill the holes in their understanding. These words are meant as conveniences until
real understanding can be found. Sometimes understanding comes and the temporary words can be replaced with words
that have more meaning. More often, however, the patch words will take on a life of their own and no one will remember that they were only intended to be placeholders.”
― Scott Adams, quote from God's Debris: A Thought Experiment
“War is society's dirty work, usually done by kids cleaning up failures perpetrated by adults.”
― Karl Marlantes, quote from What It is Like to Go to War
“I have noticed that in a cramped space one's thoughts too tend to be cramped.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Insulted and Humiliated
“You got used to running things on your own."
"What could he do about it when he's in Iraq and the car breaks down in Kansas?"
Beckett gave her a long, quiet look. "I'm not in Iraq."
"No, and it has to be said, I'm not in Kansas anymore." She lifted her hands, then let them fall. "It's not that I've forgotten how to be a couple, but that my experience in being part of one is different from yours. Maybe from most people's. And I've been on my own a long time."
"Now you're not. I'm not fighting a war, and I'm right here." Needed to be here, he realized, with her.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from The Next Always
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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