“In increments both measurable and not, our childhood is stolen from us -- not always in one momentous event but often in a series of small robberies, which add up to the same loss.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“The desire to never leave your side, the desire to never see you again. The desire to see your face asleep on the pillow beside my face and to see your eyes open in the morning when I lie next to you—just watching you, waiting for you to wake up.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“Life forces enough final decisions on us. We should have the sense to avoid as many of the unnecessary ones as we can.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“When Jack Burns needed to hold his mother's hand, his fingers could see in the dark.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“You can give yourself a headache trying to decipher the tattoos on a naked man who’s leaping up and down on a bed.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“She was an expert at the art of sudden appearance.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“Anne-Elisabeth had taken the music from Dr. Horvath and was looking through it. 'I see finger-cramping possibilities, William - lots of them,' she told him.
I see music,' William said, winking at her. 'Lots of it.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“The point was - he wasn't acting. It was as if he'd forgotten how! Jack still knew his lines, but he was out of character... Jack had stopped acting. He was just Jack Burns - the real Jack Burns at last.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“Once again, Jack reached for her hand. It was the only thing he knew how to do. As it would turn out, it was about the only thing he reall knew.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“It surprised him that she was the one who looked stricken with fear, as if she were a prisoner in the passenger seat and saw the fast-approaching collision seconds before the drive could react to it. Bonnie pinched her lower lip with her teeth and stared at Jack as if she were transfixed--as if he were the upcoming accident, and, even though she saw him coming, she couldn't turn away.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
“Do not forget the past; forgive the past.”
― John Irving, quote from Until I Find You
John Irving
Born place: in Exeter, New Hampshire, The United States
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“Maybe I don't like people as much as the rest of the world seems to. Seems like the human race is in love with itself. What kind of ego do you have to have to think that you were created in God's image? I mean, to invent the idea that God must be like us. Please. As Stanley Kubrick once pointed out, the discovery of more intelligent life somewhere other than Earth would be catastrophic to man, simply because we would no longer be able to think of ourselves as the centre of the universe. I guess I'm slowly becoming one of those crusty old cranks that thinks animals are better than people. But, occasionally, people will pleasantly surprise me and I'll fall in love with one of them, so go figure.”
― Mark Oliver Everett, quote from Things The Grandchildren Should Know
“…though I wouldn’t have admitted it, even to myself, I didn’t want God aboard. He was too heavy. I wanted Him approving from a considerable distance. I didn’t want to be thinking of Him. I wanted to be free—like Gypsy. I wanted life itself, the color and fire and loveliness of life. And Christ now and then, like a loved poem I could read when I wanted to. I didn’t want us to be swallowed up in God. I wanted holidays from the school of Christ.”
― Sheldon Vanauken, quote from A Severe Mercy: A Story of Faith, Tragedy and Triumph
“... as recently as the mid-1970s, the most well-respected criminologists were predicting that the prison system would soon fade away. Prison did not deter crime significantly, many experts concluded. Those who had meaningful economic and social opportunities were unlikely to commit crimes regardless of the penalty, while those who went to prison were far more likely to commit crimes again in the future.”
― Michelle Alexander, quote from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
“I am a little man and this is a little town, but there must be a spark in little men that can burst into flame.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from The Moon Is Down
“We are all theologians, either good ones or bad ones. I'd rather be a good one. Wouldn't you?”
― Randy Alcorn, quote from Courageous
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The Restaurant at th...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.
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