“Clever as the Devil and twice as pretty.”
“The easiest lies to tell are the ones you want to be true.”
“Once someone's hurt you, it's harder to relax around them, harder to think of them as safe to love. But it doesn't stop you from wanting them.”
“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be. That's why habits are so hard to break. If we know ourselves to be liars, we expect not to tell the truth. If we think of ourselves as honest, we try harder.”
“She says that what you did was a cry for help."
"It was," I say. "That's why I was yelling 'Heeeelp!' I don't really go in for subtlety.”
“I can't trust the people I care about not to hurt me. And I'm not sure I can trust myself not to hurt them, either.”
“He's the kind of liar who totally forgets what he told you the last time, but he believes every single lie with such conviction that sometimes he can convince you of it.”
“And if I wanted to kill myself, I wouldn't throw myself off a roof. And if I was going to throw myself off a roof, I would put on some pants before I did it.”
“Pet the cat dude," says Sam. "She brought you a present. She wants you to tell her how badass she is."
"You are a tiny tiny killing machine." Daneca coos.
"What's she doing?" I ask.
"Purring!" says Daneca. She sounds delighted. "Good kitty. Who's an amazing killing machine? That's right. You are! You are a brutal brutal tiny lion! Yes, you are.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere," Sam says, "Except, apparently, off a roof.”
“You have a real talent for getting your ass kicked.”
“Marks forget that whenever something's too good to be true, that's because it's a con.”
“I have no memory of climbing the stairs up to the roof. I don't even know how to get where I am, which is a problem since I'm going to have to get down, ideally in a way that doesn't involve dying.”
“To remind me, pain is the best teacher”
“I need to talk to you. I had a weird dream."
"Let me guess. You got tied up by lady ninjas. With big hooters."
"Uh, no." I take a sip of coffee and wince. It was ridiculously strong.
My grandfather shoves a strip of bacon in his mouth with a grin. "Guess it would have been kind of weird if we'd had the same dream."
I roll my eyes. "Well, you'd better not tell me anything else. Don't ruin the surprise in case I have it tonight.”
“I have to spring a cat out of Rumelt Animal Shelter. Think of it as a prison break."
It does the trick. He laughs. "Whose cat?"
"My cat. What do you think? That I break out the cats of strangers?"
"Let me guess, she was framed. She's innocent.”
“Memory is slippery. It bends to our understanding of the world, twists to accommodate our prejudices. It is unreliable. Witnesses seldom remember the same things. They identify the wrong people. They give us the details of events that never happened. Memory is slippery, but my memories suddenly feel slipperier.”
“We have about three hours of homework a night, and our evening study period is only two hours, so if you want to spend the break at half-past-nine not freaking out, you have to cram. I'm not sure that the picture of the wide-eyed zombie girl biting out the brains of senior douchebag James Page is part of Sam's homework, bit if it is, his physics teacher is awesome.”
“Okay. how about that time when you smoked all that weed that you thought was laced with something? You fell into the tub, but you refused to get out because you were convinced that the back of your head was going to fall off?
"That third story happened to a guy named Jace in my dorm. Me and Sam and another guy in our hall took turns reading "Paradise Lost" through the locked door. I think it made him more paranoid, though."
"That's not true," he says.
"Well, he *seemed* more paranoid to me," I say. "And he still gets a little weired out when any one mentions angels.”
“You better get over here with my car,” Grandad says. “Before I call the cops and tell them you stole it.”
“Sorry,” I say contritely. Then the rest of what he said sinks in and I laugh.
“Wait, did you just threaten me with calling the police? Because that I’d like to
see.”
“Someone could cut through the mess in our house and look at it like one might look at rings on a tree or layers of sediment. They'd find the black-and-white hairs of a dog we had when I was six, the acid-washed jeans my mother once wore, the seven blood-soaked pillowcases from the time I skinned my knee. All our family secrets rest in endless piles.”
“We are, largely, who we remember ourselves to be”
“On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me.
“How could you be so stupid?
I shrug, stung in spite of myself.
“I thought I grew out of it.”
Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid.
“I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.”
“Greg stands up, wiping his mouth. "I saw your mother's trial in the paper, Sharpe. I know you're just like her."
"If I was, I would make you beg to blow me," I sneer.”
“It’s just that you go so crazy being alone like that. Sometimes he’d forget my water or food and I’d cry and cry and cry.” She stops talking and looks out the window. “I would try to tell myself stories to pass the time. Fairy tales. Parts of books. But they got used up.”
“Like a stage magician, the con artist misdirects suspicion. While everyone’s watching for him to pull a rabbit out of a hat, he’s actually sawing a girl in half. You think he’s doing one trick when he’s actually doing another.
You think that I’m dying, but I’m laughing at you.”
“Lie until even you believe it - that's the real secret of lying”
“It’s sweet. All this trouble for a kitty.”
“For the next four years, they will again and again tout themselves as “real” and I will be too naïve to know that anyone who uses that designation is disguising a representation of immense falsity”
“If you give only 80 percent leadership, your dog will give you 80 percent following. And the other 20 percent of the time he will run the show. If you give your dog any opportunity for him to lead you, he will take it.”
“Baby, I wish I could tell you how much I love you, how much you mean to me."
He nuzzled my cheek and continued down my neck, setting a fire across my skin, churning coals that burst into flames deep within my soul.
"Show me.”
“Life is funny like that, making us pay for the same stupid mistakes even after we've learned from them thoroughly.”
“Henderson Jakes, the founder of the Eyrie, had envisioned a cadre of elite soldiers dedicated to celibacy, the empire, and the art of war. He had to settle for two out of three. Young men and women willing to leap off massive birds into burning buildings at a mere nod from a commanding officer grew violently rebellious when required to abstain from sex.”
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.