“Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“Why were Jack and his brother digging post holes? A fence there would run parallel to the one that already enclosed the farmyard. The Welches had no animals to keep in or out - a fence there could serve no purpose. Their work was pointless. Years later, while I was waiting for a boat to take me across the river, I watched two Vietnamese women methodically hitting a discarded truck tire with sticks. They did it for a good long while, and were still doing it when I crossed the river. They were part of the dream from which I recognized the Welches, my defeat-dream, my damnation-dream, with its solemn choreography of earnest useless acts.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“And in my heart I despised the life I led in Seattle. I was sick of it and had no idea how to change it. I thought that in Chinook, away from Taylor and Silver, away from Marian, away from people who had already made up their minds about me, I could be different. I could introduce myself as a scholar-athlete, a boy of dignity and consequence, and without any reason to doubt me people would believe I was that boy, and thus allow me to be that boy. I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“Happiness is endless hapiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“I've allowed some of these points to stand, because this is a book of memory, and memory has its own story to tell. But I have done my best to make it tell a truthful story.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“I recognized no obstacle to miraculous change but the incredulity of others. This was an idea that died hard, if it ever really died at all.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“It was like fishing a swamp, where you feel the tug of something that at first seems promising and then resistant and finally hopeless as you realize that you've snagged the bottom, that you have the whole planet on the other end of your line.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“Want! You must want something. What do you want?”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
“And I learned that it's a bad idea to curse if you're in trouble, but a good idea to sing, if you can.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from This Boy's Life
Tobias Wolff
Born place: in Birmingham, Alabama, The United States
Born date June 19, 1945
See more on GoodReads
“We do what we do because there's something we can do about it. Things like 'how long' and 'what if' aren't part of that. It's about the hope, not the horror." Thoughts of London welled up in my pipes but I kept going. "And for that matter, you know all about the horrors, just like I do, just like John does, just like Much. We shoulder it so these people don't have to know it too. And I know this because that's what you say. And when you say it, I believe you. and when I believe you, I'll follow you anywhere.”
― A.C. Gaughen, quote from Scarlet
“It was a house for those who could not take care of themselves, for those who heard voices, who had strange thoughts and did strange things. The house was meant to keep them in. Once they came, they never left.”
― Madeleine Roux, quote from Asylum
“Now I have more freedom than I have ever had at any time in my life, and I do only the things I always have. They were empty before, but Selina has given a meaning to them, I do them for her. I am waiting, for her - but, waiting, I think, is too poor a word for it. I am engaged with the substance of the minutes as they pass. I feel the surface of my flesh stir - it is like the surface of the sea that knows the moon is drawing near it. If I take up a book, I might as well never have seen a line of print before - books are filled, now, with messages aimed only at me. An hour ago, I found this:
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows, fast and thick,
Fall on my overflowing eyes...
It is as if every poet who ever wrote a line to his own love wrote secretly for me, and for Selina. My blood - even as I write this - my blood, my muscle and every fibre of me, is listening, for her. When I sleep, it is to dream of her. When shadows move across my eye, I know them now for shadows of her. My room is still, but never silent - I hear her heart, beating across the night in time to my own. My room is dark, but darkness is different for me now. I know all its depths and textures - darkness like velvet, darkness like felt, darkness bristling as coir or prison wool.”
― Sarah Waters, quote from Affinity
“When I look around at this ‘normal’ life you’re so eager to leave, I don’t see boring or predictable—I see friends who love you and a family that would make any sacrifice for your happiness. I see the kind of security I’ve never had and always wanted. I may have given you access to the world I know best, but you and your family have given me a world that doesn’t exist on a map.”
― Tamara Ireland Stone, quote from Time Between Us
“Fuck the entire world. All that matters is what you think of me.”
― Michelle A. Valentine, quote from Rock the Heart
The Decay of the Ang...
The Temple of Dawn
Tuf Voyaging
The Temporal Void
The Naked God
Babel-17BookQuoters 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.
