“There's really nothing quite like someone's wanting you dead to make you want to go on living.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Love is a negative form of hatred.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“I've always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking — by which time I've generally destroyed all basis for further conversation.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“The death of an illusion tends to disconcert.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“P.S. I still dunno if it's art. Go to Hell yourself. ”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Your woman is gone and your heart is heavy. Words will not lighten the weight, and what is written is written. But let it also be put down that I grieve with you. ~Hasan~”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“He spent the last second of his life screaming, as the force of Bortan's leap pulped him against the ground, before his head was snatched from his shoulders.
My hellhound had arrived.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Nothing is cheaper than past glories.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Far below, the ocean was a bluegray rug being pulled out from beneath us.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“I’ve always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking—by which time I’ve generally destroyed all basis for further conversation.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“I’m all right now,” I said, “but leave me alone. I’m going down to the river to bathe.” I took seven steps, and then someone must have pulled out the plug, because I gurgled, everything swirled, and the world ran away down the drain.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“I’ve always been impulsive. My thinking is usually pretty good, but I always seem to do it after I do my talking—by”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“we avoided their swarms by putting one foot in front of another without pause and making noises of our own. We didn’t step on anybody who squashed.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Dress Blacks mag-bind down the sides, leaving a smooth front whereon is displayed a green-blue-gray-white Earth insignia, about three inches in diameter, high up on the left breast; below, the symbol for one’s department is worn, followed by the rank-sigil; on the right side goes every blessed bit of chicken manure that can be dreamt up to fake dignity—this, by the highly imaginative Office of Awards, Furbishments, Insig-niae, Symbols and Heraldry (OAFISH, for short—its first Director appreciated his position).”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“As for the rest of him, his function is rather like that of an anti-computer: you feed him all kinds of carefully garnered facts, figures, and statistics and he translates them into garbage.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“So feathers or lead?” I asked him. “Pardon?” “It is the riddle of the kallikanzaros. Pick one.” “Feathers?” “You’re wrong.” “If I had said lead’ . . .?” “Uh-uh. You only have one chance. The correct answer is whatever the kallikanzaros wants it to be. You lose.” “That sounds a bit arbitrary.” “Kallikanzaroi are that way. It’s Greek, rather than Oriental subtlety. Less inscrutable, too. Because your life often depends on the answer, and the kallikanzaros generally wants you to lose.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“And then the night wind, cool through arches of the years, came hounding after me.”
― Roger Zelazny, quote from This Immortal
“Je sens en moi, confusément, des aspirations extraordinaires, des sortes de lames de fond, des mouvements, des agitations incompréhensibles, et que je ne veux pas chercher à comprendre, que je ne veux même pas observer, par crainte de les empêcher de se produire.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters
“Maybe Jeff Haugh wouldn’t speak to him in school that day. But it wouldn’t matter. Stephen stared out over his ice-shrouded neighborhood and realized that what had happened the previous night was inviolable; it could not be taken from him the way his childhood had been. Jeff Haugh’s arms and lips had held him, and no words or actions could undo that. Jeff Haugh. Stephen rolled the name back and forth in his head. He found himself unable to think of him as just Jeff. His full name seemed more appropriate. With Jeff Haugh in his history, Stephen would always be part of something beyond his window. He”
― Christopher Rice, quote from A Density of Souls
“Talking to yourself?" Her father turned the corner of the house to join her amid the rows of roses. Sneaking was evil, she decided. "No. I was… just conversing with the new rosebush," she stammered, feeling her cheeks warm. "Ah. And did it answer?" "I believe it to be shy." "If it everdoesanswer, you will inform me, won't you ?" "Very amusing.”
― Suzanne Enoch, quote from England's Perfect Hero
“In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.”
― quote from Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
“When I die, I want them to bury me facedown and ass up so that the whole world can kiss my ass!”
― Julie Halpern, quote from Get Well Soon
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.