Quotes from Want Not

Jonathan Miles ·  403 pages

Rating: (2.6K votes)


“This is our condition . We do not solve problems. We replace them with other problems.”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not


“…wondering, not for the first time, if there was a kind of dark bliss built into dementia: an immunity from death and abandonment, a way of fixing a point in time so that nothing can change, nothing can be rewritten, no one can leave.”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not


“But now . . . he was not yet at the age, like his father, when life shifts to past tense, when what is becomes what was and all the other verbs defining your existence go slumping into the preterite, crusted with apophonic alternations (I sing calcifying into I sang), and you can do nothing but marvel or wince at the irredeemable, irreversible arc of it—not yet. On this November night he was fifty-four years old. By no means, he told himself, was he beyond the future tense. But he could feel the past tense gaining on him, like the cold seeping into his back and dusting his face. He licked it off his lips and stood up. He had work to do.”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not


“But then he decided it wasn’t an irony, it was merely the broken gears of time, or the way life can feed you when you’re full (youth) and starve you when you’re hungry (midlife).”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not


“Alexis was at that age, seventeen, when mothers come into view as tyrants or imbeciles or both.”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not



“This is our condition. We do not solve problems. We replace them with other problems.”
― Jonathan Miles, quote from Want Not


About the author

Jonathan Miles
Born place: The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I looked at Spangler. He was leaning forward so far he was almost out of his chair. He looked as if he was going to jump. I couldn't think of any reason why he should jump, so I thought he must be excited. I looked back at Breeze. He was about as excited as a hole in the wall.”
― Raymond Chandler, quote from The High Window


“She seemed like a creature made to attract everyone and express nothing real, though it would take a master observer, like Magnus, to know it.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from The Midnight Heir


“In his head he felt the confused whirling of images seeking a name. Words, sounds, surged up inside him, clean and clear, and settled on everything around him. He named, and saw what he named recognize itself.”
― Gioconda Belli, quote from Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve


“Okay heres the deal a whole day of NO TALKING IN SCJHOOL.Not in class,not in the halls, not on the plaground nowhere.No talking at all. And its a contest- BOYS AGAINST GIRLS. Whichever side talks less, wins.”
― Andrew Clements, quote from No Talking


“For a minute there, I thought I stood a chance. But I guess in the end, Mitchell will still be the lucky one.”
― Piper Shelly, quote from Play With Me


Interesting books

The Silent Blade
(16K)
The Silent Blade
by R.A. Salvatore
The Spellmans Strike Again
(11.2K)
The Spellmans Strike...
by Lisa Lutz
Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood
(21.6K)
Smashed: Story of a...
by Koren Zailckas
Cesar's Way: The Natural, Everyday Guide to Understanding and Correcting Common Dog Problems
(8.8K)
Cesar's Way: The Nat...
by Cesar Millan
Pulled
(9K)
Pulled
by Amy Lichtenhan
Grounded
(55.1K)
Grounded
by R.K. Lilley

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.