Quotes from Toby Alone

Timothée de Fombelle ·  392 pages

Rating: (2.2K votes)


“[Toby] reflected that being cruel sometimes makes you rich and powerful, but it always makes you ugly.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone


“Little tree filled his lungs with the white airness of the night, as if he were going to fly.
The living voice of his parents. Elisha's eyes. These were reasons enough to set off on another adventure.
Reasons to be Toby Lolness again.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone


“Quando un bambino di sette anni, isolato e sempre solo, scopre che a meno di una giornata di cammino c’è un altro bambino della sua età, è capace di tutto per trovarlo. È la magia della calamita, che i bambini conoscono bene.
E anche gli innamorati.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone


“Ma quando si trovò a festeggiare il compimento del terzo giorno con un panino duro accompagnato da un piatto di muffa, e si rese conto che gli mancavano centodiciassette giorni da passare a quel modo, capì che non si vive soltanto di aria, acqua, calore, luce, cibo e consapevolezza del tempo.

Ma insomma, cos’aveva da lamentarsi? Cosa voleva ancora? Di cosa si vive, oltre che di tutte queste cose?

Si vive degli altri.

Questa fu la sua conclusione.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone


“Cậu để lại trên mặt nước một cái vỏ sò nhỏ màu đỏ rực mà cậu nhặt được, rồi ra về. Mảnh sò trôi dần về phía Elisa. Cô bé cầm lên khi nó giạt vào những nếp gấp của chiếc váy bập bềnh trên mặt nước, tạo nên những mảnh lụa xanh trải rộng.”
― Timothée de Fombelle, quote from Toby Alone



About the author

Timothée de Fombelle
Born place: in Paris, France
Born date January 1, 1973
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“nothing is stranger to man than his own image”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.


“If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as "human rights"? How smart does a chimpanzee have to be before killing him constitutes murder? What further properties must he show before religious missionaries must
consider him worthy of attempts at conversion?”
― Carl Sagan, quote from Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence


“She leaves him sitting there, glancing back just once before she goes through the stairwell door and observing how the cloud of smoke from his cigar gets pulled in wisps out the dark gaping hole in the glass wall--as though it is his soul, too large for his massive frame and seeping out the pores of his skin and wandering circuitous back into the wilderness where it knows itself true among the violent and the dead.”
― Alden Bell, quote from The Reapers are the Angels


“There is not only one measure of beauty, Lanore. Everyone adores the red rose, and yet it is a common sort of beauty. You are like a golden rose, a rare bloom but no less lovely.”
― Alma Katsu, quote from The Taker


“Besides, the kettle was aggravating and obstinate. It wouldn't allow itself to be adjusted on the top bar; it wouldn't hear of accommodating itself kindly to the knobs of coal; it would lean forward with a drunken air and dribble, a very Idiot of a kettle, on the hearth. It was quarrelsome, and hissed and spluttered morosely at the fire. To sum up all, the lid, resisting Mrs. Peerybingle's fingers, first of all turned topsy-turvey, and then with an ingenious pertinacity deserving of a better cause, dived sideways in - down to the very bottom of the kettle. And the hull of the Royal George has never made half the monstrous resistance to coming out of the water, which the lid of that kettle employed against Mrs. Peerybingle, before she got it up again.
It looked sullen and pig-headed enough, even then: carrying its handle with an air of defiance, and cocking its spout pertly and mockingly at Mrs. Peerybingle as if it said, "I won't boil. Nothing shall induce me!”
― Charles Dickens, quote from A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Writings


Interesting books

Enduring Love
(32.1K)
Enduring Love
by Ian McEwan
The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales
(6.8K)
The Murders in the R...
by Edgar Allan Poe
Company of Liars
(10.5K)
Company of Liars
by Karen Maitland
The Man Who Would Be King
(9.2K)
The Man Who Would Be...
by Rudyard Kipling
With All My Soul
(8.2K)
With All My Soul
by Rachel Vincent
Immortal City
(12.5K)
Immortal City
by Scott Speer

About BookQuoters

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.