“Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“How could she tell him that we come to love those who save us?”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Heimat. The word mean home in German, the place where one was born. But the term also conveys a subtler nuance, a certain tenderness. One's Heimat is not merely a matter of geography; it is where one's heart lies. ”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off...”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“We are all ashamed in one way or another. Who among us is not stained by the past?”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“She can never tell him what she started to say: that we come to love those who save us. For although Anna does believe this is true, the word that stuck in her throat was not save but shame.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“From this vantage point in the summer, the countryside below is a dreaming checkerboard over which it seems that one could, with a running start, spread one's arms and fly.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“The past is past. And better it remain so.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“For one of the odd things about death, Trudy has discovered, is that in its wake one must go about business as usual; it seems heartless and wrong, but now that the rituals of mourning have been attended to, the sole task left to Trudy is to try and comprehend the enormity of thes sudden change.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Een van de vreemde dingen aan de dood, heeft Trudy ontdekt, is namelijk dat je in het kielzog ervan gewoon verdergaat alsof er niets gebeurd is. Het lijkt harteloos en verkeerd, maar nu de rituelen van de rouw afgehandeld zijn, hoeft Trudy alleen nog maar de enorme omvang van deze plotselinge verandering proberen te bevatten.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Thomas cracks his joints on the steering wheel. It’s all right. I mean, it’s not, but of course you wouldn’t know. It’s not exactly something I advertise. And I only bring it up now to let you know I’m in your corner. Life is so often unfair and painful and love is hard to find and you have to take it whenever and wherever you can get it, no matter how brief it is or how it ends. So I understand. That’s all.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“MAY IN MINNEAPOLIS IS LILAC TIME. AS IF TO COMPENSATE for the punitive winter, the city explodes with flowers overnight—making it, if only for a week or two, one of the most beautiful places on earth. First there are sunny starbursts of forsythia; then the cherry and dogwood trees burst into life, showering petals everywhere, pink and cream, drifting thick as snow on the sidewalks. But it is the lilacs that truly herald the coming of spring: lavender and white and blue and sometimes a purple deep as grapes, they bloom in the alleys and over backyard fences and in graveyards. Beauty is everywhere, including the most unexpected places. There is no respite from it.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Most of us are drawn to this time period thinking it was a war of absolute good versus absolute evil—qualities rarely found in their purest form—and that’s true. But don’t forget that history isn’t just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“A bereavement club. You don’t choose to join it; it’s thrust upon you. And the members whose lives have been changed have more knowledge than those who aren’t in it, but the price of belonging is so terribly high.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Died from eating a Hershey bar.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“We were still so scared. Even more than before. Scared of what the Nazis could do, for no rhyme or reason, whenever they wanted. So now you know what happened to my eye. This is something I have never told anyone . . . Because I am still so ashamed, you see. I often think it is fitting punishment for all the times I could have helped that girl before that terrible day, or helped others get into the woods, or hidden them in the barn without my parents knowing. But I did not. I turned a blind eye, yes? And as the Bible says . . . Well, I just think it is appropriate.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“The death of a parent, he says to it, is a profoundly lifealtering experience, isn't it? When I was a child, I often had this feeling of God's in his Heaven: All's right with the world—that's Robert Browning. An English poet. But ever since my father died in the last war, I've awakened each morning knowing that I'll never again feel that absolute security. Nothing is ever quite right, is it, after a parent dies? No matter how well things go, something always feels slightly off...”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“It's like being in a sort of club, isn't it? A bereavement club. You don't choose to join it; it's thrust upon you. And the members whose lives have been changed have more knowledge than those who aren't in it, but the price of belonging is so terribly high.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“Kinder, Kirche, Küche: children, church, kitchen; this is what all German girls hope for;”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“There is, of course, no way of knowing for certain. There is no way to know what they felt, those millions who were given no chance at survival. I can only speculate. And even I, a Jew—yes, I am a Jew, Dr. Swenson, and my entire family was murdered by the Nazis—even I can only imagine a pale facsimile of what it must have been like. But I do know that there is no justification. No possible rationalization for what the Nazis did, for what civilian Germans permitted and encouraged to happen.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“So you see, he says softly, we are all ashamed in one way or another. Who among us is not stained by the past?”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“However, the knowledge that her misery has company is little comfort, and this jubilant springtime display is not to be trusted. Life is a frosted cake made of worms.”
― Jenna Blum, quote from Those Who Save Us
“the key to improved mental performance of almost any sort is the development of mental structures that make it possible to avoid the limitations of short-term memory and deal effectively with large amounts of information at once.”
― K. Anders Ericsson, quote from Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“she’d written in the other were dark. Very dark. And fictional, she reminded herself. It had all been very fictional. A safe means to live out the emotions she couldn’t. Process the evil. Had she known what she created was real in any fashion, she’d been much more… responsible. “Someone”
― Lucian Bane, quote from Seven Sons of Zion
“N.B. – Do not on any account attempt to write on both sides of the paper at once.”
― quote from 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England
“It was never about the money; at times no money was involved, just sex.”
“Then what?”
“It was always about—” I had never asked that question of myself. “It was always about—” No word came, no answer.
“Power.”
― John Rechy, quote from After the Blue Hour
“She doesn’t think, doesn’t worry, has no anxiety. She feels no pressure when she is in her garden. She can weed for hours, losing all sense of time until her back starts to hurt and she remembers all the other things she has to do.”
― Jane Green, quote from Saving Grace
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.