“I want to see the king," I said, after explaining who I was.
"Wonderful," said the ancient Nkumai who sat on a cushion near the corner pole of the house. "I'm glad for you."
That was all, and apparently he meant to say no more. "Why are you so glad?" I asked.
"Because it's good for every human being to have an unfulfilled wish. It makes all of life so poignant.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“My master wishes to see you," said the mounted man.
"When the planting's done," I said.
"Lord Barton is unaccustomed to waiting."
"Then he should rejoice, for he'll learn something new today." I went back to the garden. Soon the servant left.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“I don't know what's going on in the world," he said. "Everything seemed so reasonable and scientific until I discovered my son was a fraud with the ability to hide my own memories from me. And now you come along. The captain at the gate told me you were executed and buried yesterday."
"He spoke to you? He didn't say a word to me," I said.
"Don't change the subject, young man. I'm accusing you of violating the laws of nature."
"Nature's virtue is intact. I just know some different laws.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“And I began to suspect that the ultimate sacrifice isn't death after all; the ultimate sacrifice is willingly bearing the fullest penalty for your own actions.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“I wonder sometimes if I'm not, after all, a piece in some other player's game, following blindly his grand designs without ever knowing that my path along the board is only a feint, while the important matters are played out elsewhere by other men.
But whether there's some grand design really matters little to me. My only hope was this: To see what might be, to believe that it should be, and then to do all I could to bring it to pass, whatever the cost. When a life spins out as joyfully as mine has done, then the price, one paid so painfully, is now recalled in gladness. I have received full value. Here among the shepherds, my cup is filled with the water of life; it overflows.”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from Treason
“And tell me, who will be more successful in life? The kid who knows all the chemical formulae or the one who knows teamwork, passion, discipline and focus?”
― Chetan Bhagat, quote from The 3 Mistakes of My Life
“I’ve never agreed with the conventional wisdom that ‘actors are great liars.’ If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be ‘actors are terrible liars,’ because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What’s called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary.”
― Rob Lowe, quote from Stories I Only Tell My Friends
“Most talented developers do not have much interest in learning about the specific domain in which they are working, much less making a major commitment to expand their domain-modeling skills. Technical people enjoy quantifiable problems that exercise their technical skills.”
― quote from Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
“في صمت الليالي المعتمة ملأنا كتابًا بكل هذه الرؤى التي نبعت من خيالاتنا عن الهزيمة و الفشل الذي حلمنا به و نحن حزانى نفتقد للبهجة، أولئك المعوزون برؤوسهم المحنية، و طرقهم الموحلة، و بيوتهم غير مكتملة البناء، و شوراعهم الغريبة المعتمة، الناس الذين يعتقدون أن كل شيء سيعود كما كان و هم يتلون صلواتهم التي لا يفقهون معناها،الأمهات و الآباء الثكلى، البؤساء الذين لم تسمح لهم أعمارهم القصيرة أن يخبرونا عما أنجزوه و حقّقوه في بلاد أخرى، المصانع و الآلات التي لا تعمل، الأرواح ذات العيون المخضلة بالدمع ترثي الأيام الخوالي، الكلاب الضالة التي ليست في هزالها أكثر من جلد على عظم، الفلاحون الذين لا يمتلكون أراض، المتشردون المتسكعون في المدينة، المسلمون الجهلة و الأميون الذين يرتدون سراويلهم و حروبهم كلها تنتهي بالهزيمة.”
― Orhan Pamuk, quote from The White Castle
“Where there is a believing community whose life is centered in the biblical story through its worshipping, teaching, and sacramental and apostolic life, there will certainly be differences of opinion on specific issues, certainly mistakes, certainly false starts. But it is part of my faith in the authenticity of the story itself that this community will not be finally betrayed.”
― Lesslie Newbigin, quote from The Gospel in a Pluralist Society
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.