“Pain explains a great deal of human conduct, but the fear of pain even more.”
― Neil Abramson, quote from Unsaid
“Sometimes events that lead us bereft of anything but grief just happen for no reason other than happenstance--a car turns left instead of right, a train is missed, a call comes too late--and the real test of our humanness is whether, in light of that knowledge, we are ever able to recover. When we again find our way despite the inability to manufacture a deeper meaning in our suffering, that I think is when God smiles upon us, proud of the strength of his creation.”
― Neil Abramson, quote from Unsaid
“God lives in the peaks and valleys, the jarring transitions, not in the mundane, the safe, the smooth, or the repetitive. But that means there must be at least a certain amount of dissonance. Without dissonance, there is no need of belief, and without belief there surely is no God.”
― Neil Abramson, quote from Unsaid
“I've seen too much sacrifice to believe that God is behind all of it, and I've seen sacrifice that has no indicia of the hand of God at all. Loss is not always part of some greater plan explainable by reference to the actions of a divine being with a divine purpose.”
― Neil Abramson, quote from Unsaid
“Because I want my voice to be the last thing she hears, not the sound of oncoming traffic. I want her to feel gentle hands as she goes, not the force of a car crushing her sternum. I’m sorry, but she deserves that. We all do.” David”
― Neil Abramson, quote from Unsaid
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“London - beautiful, immortal London - has never been a 'city' in the simplest sense of the word. It was, and is, a living, breathing thing, a stone leviathan that harbours secrets underneath its scales. It guards them covetously, hiding them deep within its body; only the mad or the worthy can find them.”
― Samantha Shannon, quote from The Mime Order
“Keep only those things that speak to your heart. Then take the plunge and discard all the rest.”
― Marie Kondō, quote from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing
“The government can catch a hare with an oxcart!”
― Ismail Kadare, quote from The Palace of Dreams
“The Rabbit The rabbit wanted to grow. God promised to increase his size if he would bring him the skins of a tiger, of a monkey, of a lizard, and of a snake. The rabbit went to visit the tiger. “God has let me into a secret,” he said confidentially. The tiger wanted to know it, and the rabbit announced an impending hurricane. “I’ll save myself because I’m small. I’ll hide in some hole. But what’ll you do? The hurricane won’t spare you.” A tear rolled down between the tiger’s mustaches. “I can think of only one way to save you,” said the rabbit. “We’ll look for a tree with a very strong trunk. I’ll tie you to the trunk by the neck and paws, and the hurricane won’t carry you off.” The grateful tiger let himself be tied. Then the rabbit killed him with one blow, stripped him, and went on his way into the woods of the Zapotec country. He stopped under a tree in which a monkey was eating. Taking a knife, the rabbit began striking his own neck with the blunt side of it. With each blow of the knife, a chuckle. After much hitting and chuckling, he left the knife on the ground and hopped away. He hid among the branches, on the watch. The monkey soon climbed down. He examined the object that made one laugh, and he scratched his head. He seized the knife and at the first blow fell with his throat cut. Two skins to go. The rabbit invited the lizard to play ball. The ball was of stone. He hit the lizard at the base of the tail and left him dead. Near the snake, the rabbit pretended to be asleep. Just as the snake was tensing up, before it could jump, the rabbit plunged his claws into its eyes. He went to the sky with the four skins. “Now make me grow,” he demanded. And God thought, “The rabbit is so small, yet he did all this. If I make him bigger, what won’t he do? If the rabbit were big, maybe I wouldn’t be God.” The rabbit waited. God came up softly, stroked his back, and suddenly caught him by the ears, whirled him about, and threw him to the ground. Since then the rabbit has had big ears, short front feet from having stretching them out to break his fall, and pink eyes from panic. (92)”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Genesis
“[Parker] ”We know why I kissed you last night, Maris.”
“To frighten me off.”
He frowned. “That doesn’t even merit an argument. I kissed you because you braved Terry’s and showed up everybody in the place, including me. I kissed you because just looking at you made me ache. I kissed you because I’m a rotten son of a bitch and your mouth looked so goddamn kissable. Simply put, I kissed you because I wanted to. It’s something I admit and you damn well know. But there is one question that’s driving me fucking crazy.”
His eyes focused harder on hers and, by doing so, penetrated. “Why did you kiss me back?”
― Sandra Brown, quote from Envy
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JetBookQuoters 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.
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