“[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
“Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, quote from Kitchen
“Dying this way was a better way to die because living this way was a better way to live. The”
― Karl Marlantes, quote from Matterhorn
“Consistency is the virtue of mules!”
― Amish Tripathi, quote from The Secret of the Nagas
“Your past is always your past. Even if you forget it, it remembers you.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from What Happened to Goodbye
“What good does it do me, after all, if an ever-watchful authority keeps an eye out to ensure that my pleasures will be tranquil and races ahead of me to ward off all danger, sparing me the need even to think about such things, if that authority, even as it removes the smallest thorns from my path, is also absolute master of my liberty and my life; if it monopolizes vitality and existence to such a degree that when it languishes, everything around it must also languish; when it sleeps, everything must also sleep; and when it dies, everything must also perish?
There are some nations in Europe whose inhabitants think of themselves in a sense as colonists, indifferent to the fate of the place they live in. The greatest changes occur in their country without their cooperation. They are not even aware of precisely what has taken place. They suspect it; they have heard of the event by chance. More than that, they are unconcerned with the fortunes of their village, the safety of their streets, the fate of their church and its vestry. They think that such things have nothing to do with them, that they belong to a powerful stranger called “the government.” They enjoy these goods as tenants, without a sense of ownership, and never give a thought to how they might be improved. They are so divorced from their own interests that even when their own security and that of their children is finally compromised, they do not seek to avert the danger themselves but cross their arms and wait for the nation as a whole to come to their aid. Yet as utterly as they sacrifice their own free will, they are no fonder of obedience than anyone else. They submit, it is true, to the whims of a clerk, but no sooner is force removed than they are glad to defy the law as a defeated enemy. Thus one finds them ever wavering between servitude and license.
When a nation has reached this point, it must either change its laws and mores or perish, for the well of public virtue has run dry: in such a place one no longer finds citizens but only subjects.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, quote from Democracy in America
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.