Quotes from Want Not

“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

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Popular quotes

“I excuse myself and go to the ladies’ room. Washing my hands, I give myself a little you
can do this type pep talk. When I walk out, I see him leaned up against the wall opposite the door.
"Long line for the men's room?" I try to joke, moving past him.
His hand circles my wrist, stopping me. I inhale, frozen in place. My back is to him. I don't
try to pull away. I can't move. I just look down at his hand, staring at his damn freckle.
"Sarah."
"What are you playing at, Will?'
"Playing?" He tugs my arm back so I'm facing him. "I promise you this is no game."
"Alright, what do you want from me? Is that better?" I practically spit.
"Everything." He's moved his hands up to hold my biceps. "I want everything from you."
Everything. That one word still breaks my heart when I think back to that night.
My head snaps back as though he's struck me. Don’t cry, just don’t cry. "I gave you
everything once. Now I have nothing left for you."
I pull myself from his grasp and hurry back to the table.”
― Carey Heywood, quote from Him

“Maybe you’re the brat, always busy trying to make things what they aren’t.”
― Lucian Bane, quote from Ruin Box Set 1-3

“I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, You wouldn’t care about what other people thought about you if you realized how seldom they actually did.”
― Maria Semple, quote from This One is Mine

“Nourish your eye and spirit with inspiring things. They will bloom with your tending.”
― S.A.R.K., quote from Succulent Wild Woman

“Since being back in London everything seemed greyer, but clearer. She couldn't explain it. The strangest thing was she couldn't recall her New York self. She wanted that part of herself back, but she couldn't remember what it was like to be that Elle. She would catch a whiff of it, like the snatch of a song that still won't lead you to the chorus, and then it would be gone.”
― Harriet Evans, quote from Happily Ever After

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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.