“It takes a great deal of courage to stand alone even if you believe in something very strongly.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“Facts may be colored by the personalities of the people who present them.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“It's very hard to keep personal prejudice out of a thing like this. And no matter where you run into it, prejudice obscures the truth.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“Nine of us now seem to feel that the defendant is innocent, but we're just gambling on probabilities. We may be wrong. We may be trying to return a guilty man to the community. No one can really know. But we have a reasonable doubt, and this is a safeguard that has enormous value in our system. No jury can declare a man guilty unless it's sure. We nine can't understand how you three are still so sure. Maybe you can tell us.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“Look, this boy's been kicked around all his life. You know-living in a slum, his mother dead since he was nine. He spent a year and a half in an orphanage while his father served a jail term for forgery. That's not a very good head start. He's had a pretty terrible sixteen years. I think maybe we owe him a few words. That's all.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“TEN [exploding]. Bright! He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English!
ELEVEN [slowly]. He doesn't even speak good English.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“Well, it's not easy to stand alone against the ridicule of others. He gambled for support and I gave it to him.”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“This is a quiet, frightened, insignificant old man who has been nothing all his life, who has never had recognition, his name in the newspapers. Nobody knows him, nobody quotes him, nobody seeks his advice after seventy-five years. That's a very sad thing, to be nothing. A man like this needs to be recognized, to be listened to, to be quoted just once. This is very important. It would be so hard for him to recede into the background ...”
― Reginald Rose, quote from Twelve Angry Men
“In one study, researchers used an iPhone app to check in on people at random points throughout the day and found that the more people were thinking about something other than what they were doing, the less happy they felt. Even when they weren’t thinking about anything particularly bad.”
― Sophia Dembling, quote from The Introvert's Way: Living a Quiet Life in a Noisy World
“What?" The dread in her tone told Rob she knew what. "How much longer?"
"Thirty seconds."
She laughed with a panicked urgency. "I just tried to nod. I can't feel my body, but I keep reaching for it, you know?"
Rob nodded, feeling guilty he was able to.
"How about this? I'll just tell you when I'm nodding, or shaking my head, or punching you."
"Oh, no," Rob laughed, "are you planning on punching me often?"
"We'll see."
Rob couldn't help glancing at the timer, though he knew it would only make Winter more aware of what was about to happen. Seven seconds.
"I keep expecting this to get easier, taht it will start to feel as if I'm going to sleep. But it doesn't. Maybe it's not possible to get used to dying."
Rob reached out to comfort her, then remembered it was forbidden and drew back. If not for the surveillance, Rob would have reached under the silver cover and taken her hand, cold and stiff as it would have been.”
― Will McIntosh, quote from Love Minus Eighty
“Sometimes love is not enough, and it doesn’t matter how much you want it. Want him. And even if nobody else compares to that person, it doesn’t mean that you’re supposed to be with him.”
― Jessica Park, quote from Flat-Out Celeste
“Other worlds, other lives, even though so different from our own, have the power of arousing the sympathetic imagination, of awakening an intense and often creative resonance in others.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings
“Old Flossie settle down on the other side of What-the-Dickens and dragged some handiwork out of a sack. She armed herself with two thorns shaped into knitting needles. A wodge of curlicued metallic scrubbing pad supplied the threat. 'I knit handcuffs as a hobby,' explained Old Flossie happily, and set to work. 'Idle hands get up to no good, so I like to be prepared in case I meet up with any idle hands.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy
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.