Quotes from Waltzing the Cat

Pam Houston ·  288 pages

Rating: (1.4K votes)


“It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“Do you write novels?" I said.

"Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“For the people of my country," Renato said, "water is everything: love, life, religion... even God."

"It is like that for me too," I said. "In English we call that a metaphor."

"Of course," said Renato, "and water is the most abundant metaphor on earth.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“If a situation requires swearing to God it is — by definition — extreme.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat



“Like sometimes when you go to a movie and you get so lost in the story that when you’re walking out of the theater you can’t remember anything at all about your own life.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“Find yourself a place in the universe,' she said, 'a place where the dirt feels like goodness under your feet. Take the right picture and a man will walk into it. If you can bear him even a little, then for a while let him stay.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“People are supposed to accumulate, I thought, as they get older, but I seem to be sloughing off, like a person wrapped in a hundred layers of cellophane, tearing one layer off at a time, trying to get down to me.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


About the author

Pam Houston
Born place: in The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I want to see the whole picture - as nearly as I can. I don’t want to put on the blinders of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and limit my vision. If I used the term ‘good’ on a thing I’d lose my license to inspect it, because there might be bad in it. Don’t you see? I want to be able to look at the whole thing.”
― John Steinbeck, quote from In Dubious Battle


“The dead think they can get away with anything because you'll feel sorry for them. If you play cards with the dead, make sure you deal and don't let them buy you drinks. They'll slip you a formaldehyde roofie and pry the gold fillings out of your teeth.”
― Richard Kadrey, quote from Kill the Dead


“She had always given too much of her life over to relationships, and they’d never quite worked out. Now she was simplifying her life in favor of her career. It gave her a sense of control to watch herself succeeding, and a great deal of satisfaction.”
― Jack Ketchum, quote from Off Season


“We’re passionate about these causes because God has placed them on our hearts.”
― Alex Harris, quote from Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations


“A crisscross of light and shadow began to form on the pavement in front of him, and it was a beautiful thing to behold, he felt, a small, unexpected gift on the heels of such sadness and pain.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Timbuktu


Interesting books

Fall from India Place
(19.2K)
Fall from India Plac...
by Samantha Young
Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns
(1.7K)
Pole Dancing to Gosp...
by Andrea Gibson
The World According to Clarkson
(4.7K)
The World According...
by Jeremy Clarkson
The Best of Ruskin Bond
(2.1K)
The Best of Ruskin B...
by Ruskin Bond
Yellowstone Heart Song
(2.4K)
Yellowstone Heart So...
by Peggy L. Henderson
The Near Witch
(5.9K)
The Near Witch
by Victoria Schwab

About BookQuoters

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.