Quotes from Waltzing the Cat

“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

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Popular quotes

“Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Slaughterhouse-five: The Children's Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death

“Subby Subby Subby," whispered Goss. "Keep those little bells on your slippers as quiet as you can. Sparklehorse and Starpink have managed to creep out of Apple Palace past all the monkeyfish, but if we're silent as tiny goblins we can surprise them and then all frolic off together in the Meadow of Happy Kites.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken

“Kristin comes down the stairs, and the pressure on my chest snaps. I take a moment to turn away, inhaling deeply, blinking away tears. She sets the plate on a table behind the couch, and half tiptoes back up the stairs.

Thank god. I don’t think I could have handled maternal attention right this second. My body feels like it’s on a hair trigger.

I need to get it together. This is why people avoid me. Someone asks if I want a drink and I have a panic attack.

“You’re okay.” Declan is beside me, and his voice is low and soft, the way it was in the foyer. He’s so hard all the time, and that softness takes me by surprise. I blink up at him.

“You’re okay,” he says again.

I like that, how he’s so sure. Not Are you okay? No question about it.

You’re okay.

He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “But if you’re going to lose it, this is a pretty safe place to fall apart.” He takes two cookies from the plate, then holds one out to me. “Here. Eat your feelings.”

I’m about to turn him down, but then I look at the cookie. I was expecting something basic, like sugar or chocolate chip. This looks like a miniature pie, and sugar glistens across the top. “What . . . is that?”

“Pecan pie cookies,” says Rev. He’s taken about five of them, and I think he might have shoved two in his mouth at once. “I could live on them for days.”

I take the one Declan offered and nibble a bit from the side. It is awesome.

I peer up at him sideways. “How did you know?”

He hesitates, but he doesn’t ask me what I mean. “I know the signs.”

“I’m going to get some sodas,” Rev says slowly, deliberately. “I’m going to bring you one. Blink once if that’s okay.”

I smile, but it feels watery around the edges. He’s teasing me, but it’s gentle teasing. Friendly. I blink once.

This is okay. I’m okay. Declan was right.

“Take it out on the punching bag,” calls Rev. “That’s what I do.”

My eyes go wide. “Really?”

“Do whatever you want,” says Declan. “As soon as we do anything meaningful, the baby will wake up.”

Rev returns with three sodas. “We’re doing something meaningful right now.”

“We are?” I say.

He meets my eyes. “Every moment is meaningful.”

The words could be cheesy—should be cheesy, in fact—but he says them with enough weight that I know he means them. I think of The Dark and all our talk of paths and loss and guilt.

Declan sighs and pops the cap on his soda. “This is where Rev starts to freak people out.”

“No,” I say, feeling like this afternoon could not be more surreal. Something about Rev’s statement steals some of my earlier guilt, to think that being here could carry as much weight as paying respects to my mother. I wish I knew how to tell whether this is a path I’m supposed to be on. “No, I like it. Can I really punch the bag?”

Rev shrugs and takes a sip of his soda. “It’s either that or we can break out the Play-Doh”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Alkimist

“Nevertheless, what was made in the hope of transforming the world need not be rejected because it failed to do so – otherwise, one would also have to throw out a good deal of the greatest painting and poetry of the nineteenth century. An objective political failure can still work as a model of intellectual affirmation or dissent.”
― Robert Hughes, quote from The Shock of the New

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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.