“That's a very murky position," objected Felix.
"So's the weather. But this is England, we must learn to live with uncertainty.”
“I simply feel that world domination is not my cup of tea. Is that shortsighted?”
“Oh, Sophronia, thank goodness. Save me? Please? All those young girls, in pastels, talking about the weather. I shall go jump off a bridge, I swear I shall. Do you have bridges in Wiltshire? They chatter, they chatter worse than Dimity ever did. Oh, the chattering! The chattering, it haunts me.”
“If anyone saw Monique, a well-dressed woman of quality, dangling from the doorway, they apparently assumed everyone had difficulties in life and moved on.”
“The tea, once it arrived, had its customary effect—engendering comfort and loosening the tongue. That’s tea for you, thought Sophronia, the great social lubricant.”
“Soap understood her. Soap would always understand.”
“What she said was “I want a man who stays out of my way.”
“As Dimity said, “Sidheag surely does grumpy old man very well for a sixteen-year-old girl.”
“Sophronia and Dimity took a vacant love seat at the front, Sophronia dislodging a large, fluffy cat with a scrunched-up face. The cat gave her a disgusted look. Or seemed to; it was hard to tell with that face.”
“Felix looked as if he had been given some kind of caped weasel—part gift, part insult, part utter confusion. “Thank you, I think.”
“Espionage, Sophronia had learned, was tough on petticoats.”
“Saw your nicely strung-up slab of bacon.” “Don’t insult bacon,” said Sidheag.”
“It was their vampire teacher’s custom of late to administer decidedly oddball lessons. Which is to say, more oddball than an ordinary lesson with a vampire in a floating dirigible espionage school.”
“The tea, once it arrived, had its customary effect—engendering comfort and loosening the tongue. That’s tea for you, thought Sophronia, the great social lubricant”
“Things were always funnier when one was lying down.”
“Felix ran his hands through his dark hair, sounding like a resigned maiden aunt. 'It'll all end in tears and coal dust, you see if it doesn't.”
“Funambulist.' said Sophronia Temminnick, quite suddenly.
'Sophronia, such language!' Dimity Plumleigh-Teignmott reprimanded.
'Pardon?' said Agatha Woosmoss.
Sidheag Maccon, the final member of Sophronia's group, muttered, 'Bless you.'
'I wasn't sneezing, nor being indelicate, thank you all very much. I was thinking out loud.'
'As if thinking out loud weren't *decidedly* indelicate.' Dimity was not to be swayed out of disapproval when she felt it might exercise her creativity.”
“It’ll all end in tears and coal dust, you see if it doesn’t.”
“Lady Linette has been teaching us seduction techniques.” She lowered her eyes and then looked off across the gray moor, presenting him with her profile, which was rather a nice one, or so Mademoiselle Geraldine told her.
That statement successfully shocked Felix. He swallowed a few times before saying, his voice almost as high as it had been a year ago, “Really?”
“Then we are on the side of curiosity and evenhandedness. Once we know what's really going on, then we choose.'
'That's a very murky position,' objected Felix.
'So's the weather. But this is England, we must learn to live with uncertainty.”
“You think loyalty can be bought?” “Don’t you?”
“Agatha, who was spending time in their room as her own was lonely, perked up. "I preferred the garrote myself."
The others looked at her, startled. Aside from the theater, and sleeping, Agatha rarely expressed an interest in anything. Let alone something espionage related.
"You do?" Dimity encouraged.
Agatha nodded. "You can wear it as jewelry, it hides away easily, and it's a nice clean death.”
“Whoa there, miss, that’s enough of that!”
“Oh dear me, are you hurt? Have I hurt you more?”
“I think most of me’s fine, miss. Just, please, leave off the touching.”
“I do apologize. I was only checking.”
“Whoa, now. Not that I didn’t like it, miss. You can check me much as you like, only later.”
“I’m Scottish,” as if that would explain everything. The duke nodded, as if it did. “Yes, well, we can’t all be from the right side of the country. Would”
“in the end you’ll have to cede to Lord Mersey. He’s too much of a peer, you understand? And a bit of a prick as well.”
“No wife ever cleared a man’s character, not without a great deal of trouble on the lower decks. So”
“Apparently, gentlemen not only liked to kiss and touch women everywhere, they did that and more, on a regular basis, and mostly not with ladies at all, but with women of less genteel breeding. Some gentlemen, her brothers had whispered, even did it with each other. Although this was considered quite uncouth, Sophronia gathered, once one left Eton.”
“Lady Linette stopped the looks and returned to instruction. “What were we discussing?”
“Um, touching,” said Preshea, in an unusually meek tone.
“Oh, yes. He may also wish to kiss there.”
“What, the décolletage?” Dimity squeaked.
“Quite often.”
Sophronia, thinking of her brothers’ lewd talk, asked, “And elsewhere?”
Lady Linette smiled. “Well, yes, the very best ones like to kiss all over.”
“With werewolves gone and fire stoked, Sidheav stopped shaking. The tea, once it arrived, had its customary effect--engendering comfort and loosening the tongue. *That's tea for you*, thought Sophronia, *the great social lubricant.* Soon they had the whole story out of her. No wonder tea was considered a vital weapon of espionage.”
“Happy are those who know how to obtain pleasures without injury to anyone; insane are those who fancy that the Almighty can enjoy the sufferings, the pains, the fasts and abstinences which they offer to Him as a sacrifice,”
“If you can control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.”
“It is a good life we lead, brother,' said Federico with uncharacteristic solemnity.
'The best,' Ezio agreed.'And may it never change.'
They both paused - neither wishing to break the perfection of the moment - but after a while Federico quietly spoke.'May it never change us either, fratellino.”
“The steward, according to custom, had stopped all the clocks. This, in the language of Narouz, said, "Your stay with us is so brief, let us not be reminded of the flight of the hours. God made eternity. Let us escape from the despotism of time altogether." These ancient and hereditary politenesses filled Nessim with emotion.”
“desafío consiste en escalar la cumbre de las propias posibilidades.”
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.