“You won't further the cause of human rights by walking away with your morals intact. Change is about getting your hand dirty.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“The halls are full of kids, scrawny ones and fat ones, cool ones and uncool ones, freaks and jocks, cheerleaders and dogs, burnouts and nerds. It’s like Berlin, divided, except there are more walls in this city, and they’re better guarded.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“That's the thing with the dead, they get to say nothing, forever.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“She was a real quiet woman. But maybe we just weren't listening.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“But there’s this thing in her voice, like what my mom called “doublespeak.” Saying one thing and meaning another. Aunt Nora told me it was leftover from English rule. She said, “That’s the only good thing to ever come of colonialism, Kevin. The Irish can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“Tis a child that dreams there’s something better ’round the corner. It’s a grown man who knows it’s right there in front of him.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“Any story worth telling is worth exaggerating.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“Smile and the world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“All it takes to make a new person is one night with some skank you hardly know. I mean, there I am, screwing her, and now there’s somebody like you or me on the way. It’s so fucking bizarre. You screw up one time and nine months later, bam! A new person.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“I wanna fuck all the time, I've never wanted a baby.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“Mom always used to say that stupid people have more nerve than brains.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“Jon’s brought a couple of bottles of Phillips peppermint schnapps to Van Cleve Park. The label says Enjoy in Moderation. Not much chance of that in this crowd.”
― Brian Malloy, quote from The Year of Ice
“was electrified. I had never really thought the queen could have truly loved Hadley, but I saw now that she had, as much as she was able. We watched Hadley glance at the television from time to time while she painted her toenails, drank a phantom glass of blood, and made a phone call. We couldn’t hear her. We could only see, and that within a limited range. The object she reached for would appear the minute her hand touched it, but not before, so you could be sure of what she had only when she began to use it. When she leaned forward to replace the glass of”
― Charlaine Harris, quote from Definitely Dead
“What is it? something you live and breathe in like air? a kind of vacuum filled with wraithlike and indomitable anger and pride and glory at and in happenings that occurred and ceased fifty years ago? a kind of entailed birthright father and son and father and son of never forgiving General Sherman, so that forevermore as long as your childrens' children produce children you wont be anything but a descendant of a long line of colonels killed in Pickett's charge at Manassas?" 'Gettysburg,' Quentin said. 'You cant understand it. You would have to be born there.”
― William Faulkner, quote from Absalom, Absalom!
“You must learn to know the difference between tales and the truth, my Liza, she would say. Fairy tales have a habit of ending too soon. They never show what happens afterwards when the prince and princess ride off the page.”
― Kate Morton, quote from The Forgotten Garden
“His sculpture would have joy in it, try to capture the sense of fertility of Dionysus, the nature god, the power of the intoxicating drink that enabled a man to laugh and sing and forget for a while the sorrow of his earthly miseries. And then, perhaps, at the same time he could portray the decay that came with too much forgetfulness, that he saw all around him, when man surrendered his moral and spiritual values for the pleasures of the
flesh. The Bacchus would be the central figure of his theme, a human being rather than a demigod; then there would be a child of about seven, sweet-
faced, lovable, nibbling from a bunch of grapes. His composition would have death in it too; the tiger, who liked wine and was loved by Bacchus, with the deadest, dead skin and head conceivable”
― Irving Stone, quote from The Agony and the Ecstasy
“Daemon snatched the yellow packages from my hands. “Oh! Books! You have books!”
I laughed as several people waiting in line looked over their shoulders. “Hand them over.”
He clutched them to his chest, making moony eyes. “My life is now complete.”
“My life would be complete if I could actually post a review on something other than the school library computers.”
I did that about twice a week since my latest laptop went to the big computer heaven in the sky.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, quote from Opal
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.