“A man was the sum of his limits; freedom only made him see how much so.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“One left; things shifted in one's absence; one returned to something else. Time frustrated all. There was no sneaking past its rough guard, even to get to one's own yard of intimacies.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“Anything is possible. A man is what he makes up his mind to be.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“He was like a nation in crisis, looking back, and back and back — its history might be ugly, but its past shone perfect.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“Of course he bothers me. He's my husband.”
― Gish Jen, quote from Typical American
“A picture's worth a thousands words but they don't tell the whole story.”
― Jennifer Brown, quote from Thousand Words
“as if languagelessness was a step up, in evolution, from the chatter of consciousness.”
― Sharon Olds, quote from Stag's Leap: Poems
“Learning the art of programming, like most other disciplines, consists of first learning the rules and then learning when to break them.”
― quote from Effective Java Programming Language Guide
“After I put on my coat, I turn and whisper to Camille: “Just a minute.” In the living room, I leave a wide space between myself and the recliner where Cookie’s sitting, knowing that distance from her is the only thing that has kept me both physically and emotionally safe. Wearing a blue flannel shirt, black stretch pants, and a scowl, she slowly meets my eyes. The TV’s reflection flashes off the lenses of her huge, shaded eyeglasses. “Good-bye,” I tell her. It comes out cold and flat. When she responds with silence, I nod. This is all I’ll get. Cherie opens the front door, and Camille and I exit with her. When the three of us get to the train station, we all break down in tears. It’s a cry of anger for our mother’s failure to take responsibility, for the unfairness of having had no say in choosing who brought us into this world . . . and for our relief knowing that soon she’ll be gone, for good.”
― Regina Calcaterra, quote from Etched in Sand: A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island
“Your name is Do Kyungsoo. You have short-term memory loss, antesomething amnesia, so you won’t remember what happened last night. But let me help you out.
Last night I put my head on this pillow and my arms around your waist. My name’s Kim Jongin. I call you hyung. Yesterday you loved me. Today you’ll love me again.
This is where you undressed me.
This is where I undressed you.
And here I pushed you up against the wall and kissed you really hard (approximately, it was kind of dark) and we thought we should have sex.
Here you sat, dangling your legs. I put my palm on your kneecap and you bent forward and kissed me first.
We talked about ballet. You hummed a tune and my fingers did an arabresque here, grand jeté onto the floor, fouetté en tourant and then sissonne on the back of your hand. Pas de valse fast up your arm and you smiled.
I leaned on this and read your green sticky notes while you went around cleaning up invisible messes. It came to me that all the green looks like grass, and grass is boring without daisies. So I hope you like yellow?
And here’s Kim Jongin. Say hello to me?”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
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.