“Light a candle for me, I used to whisper to no one.
Someone
Anyone
If you're out there
Please tell me you can feel this fire.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“She put my hand in the fire once. Jus to see if it would burn, she said. Just to check if it was a regular hand, she said. I was 6 years old then. I remember because it was my birthday.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“I don't consider myself a moral man. I do not philosophize about life or bother with laws and principles that govern most people. I do not pretend to know the difference between right and wrong. But I do live by a certain kind of code. And somethimes, I think, you have how to shoot first.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“I fold myself into a corner of this room and bury my head in my knees and rock back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and I wish and I wish and I wish and I dream of impossible things until I've cried myself to sleep.
I wonder what it would be like to have a friend.
And then I wonder who else is locked in this asylum. I wonder where the other screams are coming from.
I wonder if they're coming from me.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“On the bleakst days you have to keep your eyes onward and upward and on the saddest days you have to leave them open to let them cry. To then let them dry. To give theam a chance to wash out the pain in order to see fresh and clear once again. (p. 193)”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“I've learned to stare at things. The walls. My hands. The cracks in the walls. The lines on my fingers. The shades of gray in the concrete. The shape of my fingernails. I pick one thing and stare at it for what must be hours. I keep time in my head by counting the seconds as they pass. I keep days in my head by writing them down. Today is day two. Today is the second day. Today is a day.
Today.
It's so cold. It's so cold. It's so cold.
Please please please
I started screaming today.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“Because these words I write down are the only proof I have that I'm still alive”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“No one wants a dandelion.
They crop up all over the place, ugly and unfortunate, an average blossom in a world desperatly seeking beauty. They're weeds, people say. They're uninteresting and offer no fragrance and there are too many of them, too much of them, we don't want them, destroy them.
Dandelions are a nuisance,
We desire the buttercups, the daffodils, the morning glories. We want the azalea, the poinsettia, the calla lily. We pluck them from our gradens and plant them in our homes and we don't seem to remember their toxic nature.
We don't seem to care that
if you get too close?
if you take a small bite?
The beauty is replaced wit pain and laced with a posion that laughs in your blood, destroys your organs, infevts your heart.
But pick a dandelion.
Pick a dandelion and make a salad, eat the leaves, the flower, the stem. Thread it in your hair, plant it in the ground and watch it thrive.
Pick a dandelion and close your eyes
make a wish
blow it into the wind.
Watch it
change
the
world.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“I’ve never read anything like this before. I’ve never read anything that could speak directly to my bones.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“This doesn’t happen. People aren’t forgotten like this. Not abandoned like this.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“He was their father, her husband, and the reason they all died a brutal, untimely death. And some days i wonder why I insist on keeping myself alive.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“Because i never really know, i still can’t tell the difference, I’m never quite certain whether or not i’m actually alive.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Unite Me
“No one looks too closely at a librarian. People are afraid of going blind from the glare of ssss-ssso much compressed wisdom.”
― Joe Hill, quote from NOS4A2
“He was already looking at their relationship through the lens of the past tense. It puzzled her, the ability of romantic love to mutate, how quickly a loved one could become a stranger. Where did the love go? Perhaps real love was familial, somehow, linked to blood, since love for children did not die as romantic love did.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from Americanah
“I’m ready when you are, Lucan.”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head in defeat. “Let’s go get our boy.”
― Lara Adrian, quote from Midnight Awakening
“It warmed my heart that my children had the right priorities: their skills, their images, their views on YouTube.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from The Hidden Oracle
“His heart sang in his breast; his soul felt like a bride in the arms of the bridegroom. He realized full well that this would not last. No man could live on earth in this manner for long. And he had received each hour of that bright springtime like a pledge—a merciful promise that would strengthen his endurance when the skies darkened over him and the road led down into a dark ravine, through roaring rivers and cold snowdrifts.”
― Sigrid Undset, quote from Kristin Lavransdatter
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.