“I'm so glad to be grouped with the men you've seen in rotten shape. My hope is that someday I will reach the pinnacle of that appalling list.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Wicked Gentlemen
“Tell me." Edward had to raise his voice a little. "Do you live by the principle that what people don't know can't hurt them?"
"No," Harper replied. "What people don't know can't hurt me.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Wicked Gentlemen
“It was a lazy community of mutual disinterest and alcohol.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Wicked Gentlemen
“No." Belimai reached out and touched Harper's shoulder. "I only said it to hurt you. I wanted to make you feel as bad as I did." Belimai smiled. "It's my own little way of sharing what I have with you. Aren't you lucky?”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Wicked Gentlemen
“Years ago when he had been at college, Edward had shown him how to change sheets from under a sleeping man. Harper had spent a few weeks after that stealing the sheets from under his fellow seminary students.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Wicked Gentlemen
“I used to believe, although I don't now, that growing and growing up are analogous, that both are inevitable and uncontrollable processes. Now it seems to me that growing up is governed by the will, that one can choose to become an adult, but only at given moments. These moments come along fairly infrequently -during crises in relationships, for example, or when one has been given the chance to start afresh somewhere- and one can ignore them or seize them.”
― Nick Hornby, quote from Fever Pitch
“And what percentage of people take up the option to die off?’ She looked at me, her glance telling me to be calm. ‘Oh, a hundred per cent, of course. Over many thousands of years, calculated by old time, of course. But yes, everyone takes the option, sooner or later.’
‘So it’s just like the first time round? You always die in the end?’
‘Yes, except don’t forget the quality of life here is much better. People die when they decide they’ve had enough, not before. The second time round it’s altogether more satisfying because it’s willed.’ She paused, then added, ‘As I say, we cater for what people want.’
I hadn’t been blaming her. I’m not that sort. I just wanted to find out how the system worked. ‘So … even people, religious people, who come here to worship God throughout eternity … they end up throwing in the towel after a few years, hundred years, thousand years?’
‘Certainly. As I said, there are still a few Old Heaveners around, but their numbers are diminishing all the time.”
― Julian Barnes, quote from A History of the World in 10½ Chapters
“Our fathers were demons,' Catarina said. 'Our mothers were heroes.”
― Cassandra Clare, quote from What Really Happened in Peru
“إن العقل لا سلطان له على أناس مثل "بتروف" إلا بمقدار ما تكون نفوسهم خالية من الرغبة في شيء من الأشياء، حتى إذا شبت في نفوسهم هذه الرغبة لم تحل بينهم وبين تحقيق إرادتهم أي عقبات”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The House of the Dead
“That same January the city government had released a report declaring that thanks to ill-informed, corrupt, and occasionally drunken coroners, murderers in New York were escaping justice in record numbers.”
― Deborah Blum, quote from The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York
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.