“We've just lost our way, that's all. But what if you could give us a chance to do better? Just one chance? One single move in the great game of history? What's your best shot? What would you consider to be the greatest mistake in world history and, more to the point, what single thing would you do to prevent it?”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“Screw humanity. I don't give the whole stinking bunch of us more than a couple of generations and good riddance. The universe is better off without us.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“Professor Sengupta had the self-satisfied habit common to many academics of pretending an intellectual equality with his audience in order to happily demonstrate his own superiority.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“В глубине души люди хотят костра и серы. Они мечтают о жестком мстительном Боге, который повелевает и карает за непослушание.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“Австро-Венгерская империя? Ей и без того хватало забот – разобраться бы, на каких языках говорить в собственном парламенте.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“Иногда лучше все оставить как есть. Время – не прялка. Время – пряжа.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“The massive machine bore down on them. Nearly fourteen feet long and six wide, it seemed to completely fill the bridge. Almost a ton and a half of wood, glass, rubber, brass and steel, a monster, roaring and trumpeting as it approached its kill, the great shining black fender arches framing its huge goggling eyes. The thrusting tusks of its sprung-leaf suspension threatened to skewer any soft flesh and young bone that lay in its path. Black smoke billowed from its rear. Sparks spat from behind its grille. No dragon of ancient legend could have seemed more terrifying or more deadly.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
“The classic private bitterness of the public zealot. A man who wanted to take out his own inadequacy on other people. And”
― Ben Elton, quote from Time and Time Again
Ben Elton
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date May 3, 1959
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“Remember, you have the capacity to choose. Choose life! Choose love! Choose health!”
― Joseph Murphy, quote from The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
“Competence means keeping your head in a crisis, sticking with a task even when it seems hopeless, and improvising good solutions to tough problems when every second counts. It encompasses ingenuity, determination and being prepared for anything.
Astronauts have these qualities not because we’re smarter than everyone else (though let’s face it, you do need a certain amount of intellectual horsepower to be able to fix a toilet). It’s because we are taught to view the world—and ourselves—differently. My shorthand for it is “thinking like an astronaut.” But you don’t have to go to space to learn to do that.
It’s mostly a matter of changing your perspective.”
― Chris Hadfield, quote from An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth
“In the expression of grief lies recovery from grief itself. Nor”
― Christopher Priest, quote from The Prestige
“Mutants are a community. We're a people and there's no way anybody can make us be what they want. We stick together and don't panic or overreact... you'll see. We're stronger than this.
Miss Pryde... are you a #&$%ing retard?”
― Joss Whedon, quote from Astonishing X-Men, Volume 1: Gifted
“It is often said that what most immediately sets English apart from other languages is the richness of its vocabulary. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary lists 450,000 words, and the revised Oxford English Dictionary has 615,000, but that is only part of the total. Technical and scientific terms would add millions more. Altogether, about 200,000 English words are in common use, more than in German (184,000) and far more than in French (a mere 100,000). The richness of the English vocabulary, and the wealth of available synonyms, means that English speakers can often draw shades of distinction unavailable to non-English speakers. The French, for instance, cannot distinguish between house and home, between mind and brain, between man and gentleman, between “I wrote” and “I have written.” The Spanish cannot differentiate a chairman from a president, and the Italians have no equivalent of wishful thinking. In Russia there are no native words for efficiency, challenge, engagement ring, have fun, or take care [all cited in The New York Times, June 18, 1989]. English, as Charlton Laird has noted, is the only language that has, or needs, books of synonyms like Roget’s Thesaurus. “Most speakers of other languages are not aware that such books exist” [The Miracle of Language, page 54]. On the other hand, other languages have facilities we lack. Both French and German can distinguish between knowledge that results from recognition (respectively connaître and kennen) and knowledge that results from understanding (savoir and wissen). Portuguese has words that differentiate between an interior angle and an exterior one. All the Romance languages can distinguish between something that leaks into and something that leaks out of. The Italians even have a word for the mark left on a table by a moist glass (culacino) while the Gaelic speakers of Scotland, not to be outdone, have a word for the itchiness that overcomes the upper lip just before taking a sip of whiskey. (Wouldn’t they just?) It’s sgriob. And we have nothing in English to match the Danish hygge (meaning “instantly satisfying and cozy”), the French sang-froid, the Russian glasnost, or the Spanish macho, so we must borrow the term from them or do without the sentiment. At the same time, some languages have words that we may be pleased to do without. The existence in German of a word like schadenfreude (taking delight in the misfortune of others) perhaps tells us as much about Teutonic sensitivity as it does about their neologistic versatility. Much the same could be said about the curious and monumentally unpronounceable Highland Scottish word sgiomlaireachd, which means “the habit of dropping in at mealtimes.” That surely conveys a world of information about the hazards of Highland life—not to mention the hazards of Highland orthography. Of”
― Bill Bryson, quote from The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way
Sword Song
The Burning Land
Sever
The Door Into Summer
Summer of Night
Way of the Peaceful...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.
