“I mean, most people want to escape. Get out of their heads. Out of their lives. Stories are the easiest way to do that.”
“The beautiful thing about books was that anyone could open them.”
“It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he only felt human after doing something monstrous.”
“Monsters, monsters, big and small,
"They're gonna come and eat you all.
Corsai, Corsai, tooth and claw,
Shadow and bone will eat you raw.
Malchai, Malchai, sharp and sly,
Smile and bite and drink you dry.
Sunai, Sunai, eyes like coal,
Sing you a song and steal your soul.
Monsters, monsters, big and small,
They're gonna come and eat you all!”
“You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn't matter if you're monster or human. Living hurts.”
“He wasn't made of flesh and bone, or starlight.
He was made of darkness.”
“She cracked a smile. "So what's your poison?"
He sighed dramatically, and let the truth tumble off his tongue. "Life."
"Ah," she said ruefully. "That'll kill you.”
“We are the darkest acts made light.”
“Nobody gets to stay the same.”
“He could be the monster if it kept others human.”
“Why did everyone have to ruin the quiet by asking questions? The truth was a disastrous thing.”
“People are users. It’s a universal truth. Use them, or they’ll use you.”
“I read somewhere," said Kate, "that people are made of stardust."
He dragged his eyes from the sky. "Really?"
"Maybe that's what you're made of. Just like us."
And despite everything, August smiled.”
“But the teacher had been right about one thing: violence breeds.
Someone pulls a trigger, sets off a bomb, drives a bus full of tourists off a bridge, and what's left in the wake isn't just she'll casings, wreckage, bodies. There's something else. Something bad. An aftermath. A recoil. A reaction to all that anger and pain and death.”
“Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.”
“It hurts,” he whispered.
“What does?” asked Kate.
“Being. Not being. Giving in. Holding out. No matter what I do, it hurts.” Kate tipped her head back against the tub. “That’s life, August,” she said. “You wanted to feel alive, right? It doesn’t matter if you’re monster or human. Living hurts.”
“Sing you a song and steal your soul.”
“Even if surviving wasn't simple, or easy, or fair.
Even if he could never be human.
He wanted the chance to matter.
He wanted to live.”
“I'd rather be able to see the truth than live a lie.”
“It was a cycle of whimpers and bangs, gruesome beginnings and bloody ends.”
“Whatever he was made of — stardust or ash or life or death — would be gone.
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
In with gunfire and out with smoke.
And August wasn’t ready to die.
Even if surviving wasn’t simple, or easy, or fair.
Even if he could never be human.
He wanted the chance to matter.
He wanted to live.”
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights,” she said, shimmying along the edge.
“Not heights,” he murmured. “Just falling.”
“Why are there so many shadows in the world, Kate? Shouldn’t there be just as much light?”
“There are no monsters in the dark.”
“Listen to me,” he said, pulling off his coat. “You need to stay awake.”
She almost laughed, a shallow chuckle cut short by pain.
He tore the lining from the Colton jacket. “What’s so funny?”
“You’re a really shitty monster, August Flynn.”
“He shrugged, and for a second they stood there, sizing each other up, the moment stretching, the gaze growing uncomfortable until his gray eyes finally broke free, escaping to the ground. Kate smiled, victorious. She gestured to the patch of pavement, the border of grass. “What brings you to my office?”
He looked around, confused, as if he’d actually intruded. Then he looked up and said, “The view.”
Kate flashed a crooked grin. “Oh really?”
His face went red. “I didn’t mean you,” he said quickly. “I was talking about the trees.”
“Wow,” she said dryly. “Thanks. How am I supposed to compete with pine and oak?”
“I don’t know,” said Freddie, cocking his head. Stray dog again. “They’re pretty great.”
“I am Sunai,” he said. “I am holy fire. And if I have to burn the world to cleanse it, so help me, I will.”
“The witching hour, people used to call it, that dark time when restless spirits reached for freedom.”
“There would be a time to call the music. Time to summon the souls.”
“Znate Manderse, ja gotovo verujem da smo svi mi aveti. Ne kreće se u nama samo ono što smo nasledili od oca i majke. To su i svi mogući i stari i mrtvi nazori, svakakva stara i mrtva verovanja itd. To ne živi u nama, ali nam leži u krvi i ne možemo ga se osloboditi. Kad god uzmem novine u ruke i čitam ih, čini mi se kao da se aveti šunjaju između redova. Mora da svuda na zemlji žive aveti. Mora da ih im toliko mnogo, koliko i peska u moru. I zato se svi mi tako bedno plašimo svetla, svi redom.
Aveti”
“I felt tears coming and for some reason, buried my head in Iain’s chest. It was firm and muscled and he smelt so wonderful.
I realised what I was doing and pulled away, but a big string of snot hung between my nose and his shirt pocket.”
“For a moment, I felt a pang of envy. I remembered those few drifting years after college, taking off alone with a backpack to explore the world. I thought I was playing a dare with life then, challenging my limits, but I was scared most of the time and wept for no clear reason in dingy hostel rooms across Europe and Central America. But the years had worked their magic, and that scared girl I had been in that remote place in time had dissolved into infinite invisible threads, so thin and delicate that I could almost touch her and then lose her the next minute. Now, almost two decades later, it felt as though she had reappeared, still uncertain, still afraid. Katie”
“The more she studied, the harder it became to speak or know anything with certainty.”
“If I know Mom,' she said, 'she'd have refused any surgery anyhow.'
'It's true,' Amanda said. 'Her advance directive basically asked us to put her out on an ice floe if she developed so much as a hangnail.”
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.