“Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“So all in all there wasn't anything really wrong with my life. Except that, like most everyone else's I knew about, it had a big gaping hole in it, an enormous emptiness, and I didn't know how to fill it or even know what belonged there.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and the prospect of satisfying it can be the most exciting of emotions.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“As Einstein himself pointed out. He said we’re like people in a boat without oars drifting along a winding river. Around us we see only the present. We can’t see the past, back in the bends and curves behind us. But it’s there.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“Would you have references?"
"I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you." I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, "It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“He's got to have the ability, and it seems to be fairly rare, to see things as they are and at the same time as they might have been. What we mean is the eye of an artist.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“Set flush in the wall behind the desk was a steel door. It was knobless, and along one edge were three brass keyholes spaced a few inches apart. Rube brought out a key ring, selected a key, then walked around the desk, inserted the key in the topmost lock, and turned it. From his watch pocket he took a single key, pushed it into the middle keyhole, and turned. The guard stood waiting beside him, and now the guard inserted a key in the bottom keyhole, turned it and pulled the door open with the key. Rube removed his two keys and gestured me in through the open door before him. He followed, and the door swung solidly shut behind us. I heard the multiple click of the locks engaging, and we were standing in a space hardly larger than a big closet, dimly lighted by an overhead bulb in a wire cage. Then I saw that we were at the top of a circular metal staircase.”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
“and—we’re all actors by instinct, hams from birth—she”
― Jack Finney, quote from Time and Again
Jack Finney
Born place: in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, The United States
Born date October 2, 1911
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“She looked up, over the bandage that was nestled under her chin, and saw that the big-belly man with the red beard was starting at her, shaking his head. He looked like he was crying.
"I got ya this time," he whispered, as if to himself. "This time, I got ya.”
― Adam Gidwitz, quote from In a Glass Grimmly
“That's how life is: it provides these accidental answers. Or it seems to. You have to judge by results.”
― quote from The November Criminals
“Wishes do not a world make. We do the best we can where we are, every minute, every breath. We make mistakes, and we have to live with them. We try to learn from them. And that is all we can do.”
― Christie Golden, quote from War Crimes
“But perhaps the most important lesson I learned is that there are no walls between humans and the elephants except those we put up ourselves, and that until we allow not only elephants, but all living creatures their place in the sun, we can never be whole ourselves.”
― Lawrence Anthony, quote from Elephant Whisperer
“Consider Steve Jobs. One biographer said, “Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead he was a genius.” Jobs dropped out of college, went to find himself in India, and at one point was forced out of Apple, the company he co-founded, when sales were slow in 1985. Few would have predicted the level of his success by his death. “Think different” became the slogan of a multinational monolith that fused art and technology under his guidance. Jobs may have been average or unexceptional in many domains, but his vision and ability to think differently made him a genius.”
― Brian Hare, quote from The Genius of Dogs: How Dogs Are Smarter than You Think
The Time Machine
The Secret History
City of Lost Souls
The Prince of Tides
Norwegian Wood
Fifty Shades DarkerBookQuoters 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.
