“How we remember changes how we have lived.
Time runs both ways. We make stories of our lives.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn't know which of them it was.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Full moon is falling through the sky.
Cranes fly through clouds.
Wolves howl. I cannot find rest
Because I am powerless
To amend a broken world.
Sima Zian added, "I love the man who wrote that, I told you before, but there is so much burden in Chan Du. Duty, assuming all tasks, can betray arrogance. The idea we can know what must be done, and do it properly. We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Branching paths. The turning of days and seasons and years. Life offered you love sometimes, sorrow often. If you were very fortunate, true friendship. Sometimes war came.
You did what you could to shape your own peace, before you crossed over to the night and left the world behind, as all men did, to be forgotten or remembered, as time or love allowed.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Truth" when examining events and records of the past was always precarious, uncertain. No man could say for certain how the river of time would have flowed, cresting or receding, bringing floods or gently watering fields, had a single event, or even many, unfolded differently.
It is in the nature of existence under heaven, the dissenting scholars wrote, that we cannot know these things with clarity. We cannot live twice, or watch as moments of the past unfurl, like a courtesan's silk fan. The river flows, the dancers finish their dance. If the music starts again it is starting anew, not repeating itself.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“There was some sadness in how that could happen, Tai thought: falling out of love with something that had shaped you. Or even people who had? But if you didn't change at least a little, where were the passages of a life? Didn't learning, changing, sometimes mean letting go of what had once been seen as true?”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“I love the way folktale and fantasy tap into the roots of story telling. The paradox, for me, is that by moving a story into the fantastic we can actually bring it closer to the reader, not move it further away. It is more than an escape. When we read of the only daughter of a fisherman (or the third son of a woodcutter) in a fairy tale, we are all that character. That's the underlying pulse beat of such tales. Using the fantastic as a prism for the past, if done properly, removes the tale from distancing specificity. It can't just be read as unique to a time and place; it is universalized in interesting, powerful ways. When I wrote Tigana, about the way tyranny tries to erase identity in conquered peoples, the fantasy setting seems to have done exactly that: I'm asked in places ranging from Korea to Poland to Croatia to Quebec, "Were you writing about us?"
I was. All of them. That is the point. The fantastic is a tool in the writer's arsenal, as potentially powerful as any there is, and any tool we have works to the benefit of the reader.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“I didn't ask to be made a princess."
This time all three of them laugh, although it is gentle enough.
"Who chooses their fate?" It is the third one, the tallest. "Who asks to be born into the times that are theirs?"
"Well, who accepts the world only as it comes to them?" she says, too quickly.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“The world could bring you poison in a jewelled cup, or surprising gifts. Sometimes you didn’t know which of them it was.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“And it is always difficult, even with the best will in the world, to look back a long way and see anything resembling the truth.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Full moon is falling through the sky. Cranes fly through clouds. Wolves howl. I cannot find rest Because I am powerless To amend a broken world.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“We cannot know the future, my friend. It claims so much to imagine we can. And the world is not broken any more than it always, always is.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Here the world is all the world may be”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“There was a new hole in the world where sorrow could enter.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“One of the pleasures of dealing with intelligent men, Lin Fong decided, watching seven people ride out the eastern gate in early-morning sunlight, was how much did not have to be spoken.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“I want to kill someone," Tai said.
A pause to consider this. "I am familiar with the desire. It is sometimes effective. Not invariably.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“Men changed during wars or conflict, sometimes beyond recognition. Tai”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“The world is not something to be understood. It is vanity, illusion to even try.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“He’d stopped permitting himself to be unhappy about it.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
Guy Gavriel Kay
Born place: in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada
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“What was surprising, though, was discovering what Starflight got up to when he was bored. “Hey,”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from The Hidden Kingdom
“Every man-made thing, be it a chair, a text, or a school, is thought made substance. It is the expression of someone's, or some groups, ideas and beliefs. The two-hundred year old double hung, six light sash window in the wall opposite my desk, out of which I am looking at this moment embodies ideas about houses and how we should live in them, tools, technologies, standards of craftsmanship, nature and much else. It is a material manifestation of the collective consciousness of its time and place channeled through the individuals who commissioned and made it".”
― quote from Why We Make Things and Why It Matters: The Education of a Craftsman
“How to Meditate 1. Sit comfortably, with your spine erect, either in a chair or cross-legged on a cushion. 2. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and feel the points of contact between your body and the chair or the floor. Notice the sensations associated with sitting—feelings of pressure, warmth, tingling, vibration, etc. 3. Gradually become aware of the process of breathing. Pay attention to wherever you feel the breath most distinctly—either at your nostrils or in the rising and falling of your abdomen. 4. Allow your attention to rest in the mere sensation of breathing. (You don’t have to control your breath. Just let it come and go naturally.) 5. Every time your mind wanders in thought, gently return it to the breath. 6. As you focus on the process of breathing, you will also perceive sounds, bodily sensations, or emotions. Simply observe these phenomena as they appear in consciousness and then return to the breath. 7. The moment you notice that you have been lost in thought, observe the present thought itself as an object of consciousness. Then return your attention to the breath—or to any sounds or sensations arising in the next moment. 8. Continue in this way until you can merely witness all objects of consciousness—sights, sounds, sensations, emotions, even thoughts themselves—as they arise, change, and pass away.”
― Sam Harris, quote from Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
“Maia screamed and woke.
'Serenity?' Cala's voice, Cala's angular shape outlined against the window.
' 'Tis an ironic title, in sooth,' Maia said feebly, realizing that the entangling garments of the nightmare were merely his bedsheets. His heart was hammering, and he was clammy with sweat.”
― Katherine Addison, quote from The Goblin Emperor
“BILL MURRAY, Cast Member: Gilda got married and went away. None of us saw her anymore. There was one good thing: Laraine had a party one night, a great party at her house. And I ended up being the disk jockey. She just had forty-fives, and not that many, so you really had to work the music end of it. There was a collection of like the funniest people in the world at this party. Somehow Sam Kinison sticks in my brain. The whole Monty Python group was there, most of us from the show, a lot of other funny people, and Gilda. Gilda showed up and she’d already had cancer and gone into remission and then had it again, I guess. Anyway she was slim. We hadn’t seen her in a long time. And she started doing, “I’ve got to go,” and she was just going to leave, and I was like, “Going to leave?” It felt like she was going to really leave forever. So we started carrying her around, in a way that we could only do with her. We carried her up and down the stairs, around the house, repeatedly, for a long time, until I was exhausted. Then Danny did it for a while. Then I did it again. We just kept carrying her; we did it in teams. We kept carrying her around, but like upside down, every which way—over your shoulder and under your arm, carrying her like luggage. And that went on for more than an hour—maybe an hour and a half—just carrying her around and saying, “She’s leaving! This could be it! Now come on, this could be the last time we see her. Gilda’s leaving, and remember that she was very sick—hello?” We worked all aspects of it, but it started with just, “She’s leaving, I don’t know if you’ve said good-bye to her.” And we said good-bye to the same people ten, twenty times, you know. And because these people were really funny, every person we’d drag her up to would just do like five minutes on her, with Gilda upside down in this sort of tortured position, which she absolutely loved. She was laughing so hard we could have lost her right then and there. It was just one of the best parties I’ve ever been to in my life. I’ll always remember it. It was the last time I saw her.”
― Tom Shales, quote from Live From New York: An Uncensored History Of Saturday Night Live
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What Is a Healthy Ch...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.
