Quotes from When We Were Animals

“It’s funny how many ways there are to hurt people. As many ways to hurt as there are species of flower. Whole bouquets of hurt.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Rather than simply being subject to them, I had wanted to know what it felt like to be one of the forces in this world.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“It was possible, I saw now, to be a grotesque, to be huge and free, to wander the streets in utter freedom despite your atrocity, as long as you did it when everybody else was sealed inside their little lit boxes.

Now it made sense – why monsters came out at night.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“We live our lives by measures of weeks, months, years, but the creatures we truly are, those are exposed in fractions of moments.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Sometimes you hide away a memory because it is so precious that you don’t want to dilute it with the attempt to recount it.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I am empty space, and I am the light that illuminates that space.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“A big bubble. A block wide. It goes where you go - you're the center of it. And every object gets a little bit better while it's in that bubble with you. It's always very bright where you are.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Promises are easy to make. [...] They speak of a defined future to which you are required to adhere. They commit you beyond the length of your experience.

What they do is take away possibility.

Promises are the opposite of hope.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“It is always a young girl's dream to have a boy believe in her most colorful fantasies. You paint landscapes with your humble heart, then you seek to populate them with boys who will understand.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Sometimes we are mysteries to ourselves.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I thought it must be difficult for him, for boys. They get temperamental when they can't shape the world into what they want it to be. It's easier for girls. Girls are raised knowing that the world is unshapable. So they know better than to fuss.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“The snow came after two o' clock. It fell faintly in the cones of lamplight, descending like fleets or fairies through the cold sky. I was awake - the only one in town, I was sure - and I was sure those miniature fallen sylphs were for me and my personal delectation. They came for me, because nature likes a saint. They settled on my window sill, they collected on the dark grass of my lawn, they danced and whirled in the wind gusts before my eyes. I put my hand to the windowpane to greet it, the first snow. By the time I woke in the morning, I saw that after the snow had come to me, it had visited everyone.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“We are always told that honesty and truth are the shining ideals. But sometimes the truth could be used as a punishment.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Who's out there?" I say.
"Just teenagers," my father says.
"Why are they like that?"
"That's just the way they are."
"Will I be like that when I grow up?"
"You? Perish the thought.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I knew the schedule. I liked to know in advance where people would be and where they wouldn't be.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“It was a holy night. I ran. My father slept soundly in his bed, somewhere far behind me, and I ran. Elsewhere in the world masses were being performed and stock was being taken of the glories and retreats of life - and it was nothing to me, because I ran. I was naked in the woods. It was a beautiful outrage.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Goddamn it," he said, seething. "Goddamn you! No fear. Not an ounce of fucking fear. You invite - you invite - destruction. What's the world to you, huh? A place to die in? You aren't even a girl - you're a… you're a tragedy. There isn't a monster in the world - not a monster in the world till he meets an eager victim.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I saw you come out with him. He hurt you." "Everybody hurts everybody."
"No."
He said no, but I wondered how could he not see that.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I smeared honey on my chest, believing it might help me grown breasts. Honeybees are industrious - they can build anything.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“The way he was looking at me made me wonder if he was talking about something other than god. Or if maybe god and the way he looked at me with those voracious boy-eyes were related. I wanted more of it. His boy-eyes, his godliness, which I felt deep down, like a surge.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Her smile was something I couldn't describe, except to say that it seemed to be queenly in the way that queens remind you of situations grander than your own puny life could conceive.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“You cannot always understand boys, the things they do. They act, sometimes, as though in thrall to severe but natural forces. They can be waterfalls or wind gusts.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Some parents in our neighborhood do everything they can to keep their children away from violent images. And then, when something terrible happens, like murder or rape or genocide - well, then a conversation has to be had with these young innocents to explain that, yes, goodness is sometimes a fiction, like Santa Claus, and that humanity is, underneath all the cookie baking and song singing, a shameful and secret nastiness. Me, I'm going to raise my son differently. What he will be made to know is that there is violence in everything - even in goodness, if you're passionate about it.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“It's funny how many ways there are to hurt people. As many ways to hurt as there are species of flower. Whole bouquets of hurt. You do it without even realizing.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I liked the rows of unpopulated seats staring at me, their lower halves all folded up except one on the aisle that was broken and remained always open, a poor busted tooth in that grinning mouth. There is nothing to fear in such cavernous and sepulchral spaces. You fill them with the riots of your imagination.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“Lumen. There was Lumen, and there was the places people did not go. And Lumen would go to those places. She would leap over denies and crawl through mud. She would climb up on rooftops and call crazy with every little branch of her lungs.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“I had started running in order to escape Rose Lincoln and her pack. Then I was running to put things decidedly being me, to seek lovely new emptinesses. Then I ran to outpace the nagging of my ticklish brain. Then I just ran.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“was a pretty young woman with an affection”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“They don't hurt anybody. Except maybe themselves. And each other.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

“They could hurt you," I insisted.
"Not on purpose. They're just teenagers. We'll be like that too one day.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals

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Popular quotes

“Well,” he said, “and this is only my own way of thinking, mind, but when you’re doing something you love—really love—you can’t let the way others play the game get in the way of that, if you follow. It don’t matter if your coach is hassling you, or whether you don’t like how some of your teammates indulge in the sport. When you’re out there, you’ve got a goal to accomplish, and you can’t see to letting all that mishmash weigh you down.”
― Jaida Jones, quote from Havemercy

“There's as many fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Fright though you are, you won't have any trouble in hooking another boy-friend.”
― Raymond Queneau, quote from Zazie in the Metro

“The scene had been a nightmare, one of those insane nightmares where the most normal objects become infinitely menacing.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Favored Child

“So, boy, how does it feel to be pouring out a never-ending stream of--?”
“Stop that!” I scowled at my brothers as I shooed them away from Milo. “How can you make such jokes in front of him?”
“To be honest, the only thing in front of him right now is the sea and the supper he ate three days ago.” Castor’s grin got wider.
Polydeuces was contrite. “We mean well, Helen. We’re only trying to make him laugh. A good laugh might take his mind off being so ill.”
“It’s a shame we’re bound straight for Corinth,” the old sailor said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Since nothing else seems to be working for this lad, could be that a short rest on dry land would steady his stomach.”
“You think we’d ever be able to get him back on board afterward?” Castor asked.
The sailor shrugged. “What would he have to say about it? He’s your slave, isn’t he?”
“He’s our sister’s slave, or was,” Castor replied. “She freed him as soon as she bought him.”
“And still he came onto this ship with you, sick as seafaring makes him?”
“This is his first voyage,” I said, stooping beside Milo to place one arm protectively around him. “He didn’t know he’d get sick.”
“Oh, he’d have come along even if he’d known that a sea monster was waiting to gobble him up,” Castor said, with another of those annoying, conspiratorial winks to his twin. “Anything rather than be separated from you, little sister.”
Polydeuces eagerly took up his brother’s game. “That’s true,” he hastened to tell the old sailor. “If you could have seen the way he’s been gazing at her, all the way from Calydon!”
“Can we blame him, Polydeuces?” Castor asked with mock sincerity. “Our little sister is the most beautiful woman in the world.” They collapsed laughing into each other’s arms.
Milo made a great effort and pushed himself away from the rail, away from me. He took two staggering steps, fists clenched. “She is.” Then he spun around and lurched for the ship’s side once more.
My brothers exchanged a look of pure astonishment. The old sailor chuckled. “He may have been a slave, Lady Helen, but he’s braver than many a free man, to talk back to princes that way! But it wouldn’t be the first time a man found courage he never knew he had until he met the right woman.”
My face flamed. I wanted to thank Milo for putting an end to my brothers’ teasing--whether or not it was all in fun, I still found it annoying--but I was strangely tongue-tied.
Fortunately for me, the old sailor chose that moment to say, “That’s not something you see every day, a mouse trying to take a bite from a lion’s tail. Mark my words, this lad has the makings of a great hero. Why, if I had it my way, I’d put in at the next port and carry him all the way to Apollo’s temple at Delphi, just to see what marvels the Pythia would have to predict about his future.”
― Esther M. Friesner, quote from Nobody's Princess

“The highest goal of human life is the enhancement of pleasure and the reduction of pain. Life should be organized to serve the pursuit of happiness. There is no ethical purpose higher than facilitating this pursuit for oneself and one’s fellow creatures. All the other claims—the service of the state, the glorification of the gods or the ruler, the arduous pursuit of virtue through self-sacrifice—are secondary, misguided, or fraudulent. The militarism and the taste for violent sports that characterized his own culture seemed to Lucretius in the deepest sense perverse and unnatural. Man’s natural needs are simple. A failure to recognize the boundaries of these needs leads human beings to a vain and fruitless struggle for more and more.”
― Stephen Greenblatt, quote from The Swerve: How the World Became Modern

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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.