Quotes from Winter's Tale

“He moved like a dancer, which is not surprising; a horse is a beautiful animal, but it is perhaps most remarkable because it moves as if it always hears music.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.

And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Lonely people have enthusiasms which cannot always be explained. When something strikes them as funny, the intensity and length of their laughter mirrors the depth of their loneliness, and they are capable of laughing like hyenas. When something touches their emotions, it runs through them like Paul Revere, awakening feelings that gather into great armies.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Justice can sleep for years and awaken when it is least expected. A miracle is nothing more than dormant justice from another time arriving to compensate those it has cruelly abandoned. Whoever knows this is willing to suffer, for he knows that nothing is in vain.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“The shelf was filled with books that were hard to read, that could devastate and remake one's soul, and that, when they were finished, had a kick like a mule.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“They gave themselves up to the stars the way swimmers can surrender to the waves, and the stars took them without resistance.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“No one ever said that you would live to see the repercussions of everything you do, or that you have guarantees, or that you are not obliged to wander in the dark, or that everything will be proved to you and neatly verified like something in science. Nothing is: at least nothing that is worthwhile. I didn't bring you up only to move across sure ground. I didn't teach you to think that everything must be within our control or understanding. Did I? For, if I did, I was wrong. I fyou won't take a chance, then the powers you refuse because you cannot explain them, will, as they say, make a monkey out of you.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“To be mad is to feel with excruciating intensity the sadness and joy of a time which has not arrived or has already been. And to protect their delicate vision of that other time, madmen will justify their condition with touching loyalty, and surround it with a thousand distractive schemes. These schemes, in turn, drive them deeper and deeper into the darkness and light (which is their mortification and their reward), and confront them with a choice. They may either slacken and fall back, accepting the relief of a rational view and the approval of others, or they may push on, and, by falling, arise. When and if by their unforgivable stubbornness they finally burst through to worlds upon worlds of motionless light, they are no longer called afflicted or insane. They are called saints.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Give me a night by the fire, with a book in my hand, not that flickering rectangular son of a bitch that sits screaming in every living room in the land.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“He could say nothing. He had no right to be there, he had already been profoundly changed, he was no good at small talk, she was half naked, it was dawn and he loved her.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Peter Lake had no illusions about mortality. He knew that it made everyone perfectly equal, and that the treasures of the earth were movement, courage, laughter, and love. The wealthy could not buy these things. On the contrary, they were for the taking.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“They're not just dreams. Not anymore, I dream more than I wake now, and, at times, I have crossed over. Can't you see? I've been there.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined; it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“All great discoveries...are products as much of doubt as of certainty, and the two in opposition clear the air for marvelous accidents.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“She felt as if she knew the stars, and had been among them, or would be.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Quite possibly there's nothing as fine as a big freight train starting across country in early summer, Hardesty thought. That's when you learn that the tragedy of plants is that they have roots.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“For what can be imagined more beautiful than the sight of a perfectly just city rejoicing in justice alone.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“...to be paid for one's joy is to steal.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“They were dancing around the fountain, arm in arm, in an old Dutch dance, their cheeks touching, their hands entwined. They had no music; they hummed. And there was no reason for them to be dancing that Peter Lake could see, except that it was an exceptionally beautiful night.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“He hated it as if he were about to love it—unforgivingly, irrationally, sadly.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“[When] he's here, he's always reading. He says books stop time. I myself think he's crazy...Don't tell anyone, but when he reads something that he likes he gets real happy, turns on the music, and dances by himself, or with a broom sometimes.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“I see no justice in that plan."
"Who said," lashed out Isaac Penn, "that you, a man, can always perceive justice? Who said that justice is what you imagine? Can you be sure that you know it when you see it, that you will live long enough to recognize the decisive thunder of its occurrence, that it can be manifest within a generation, within ten generations, within the entire span of human existence? What you are talking about is common sense, not justice. Justice is higher and not as easy to understand -- until it presents itself in unmistakable splendor. The design of which I speak is far above our understanding. But we can sometimes feel its presence.
"No choreographer, no architect, engineer, or painter could plan more thoroughly and subtly. Every action and every scene has its purpose. And the less power one has, the closer he is to the great waves that sweep through all things, patiently preparing them for the approach of a future signified not by simple human equity (a child could think of that), but by luminous and surprising connections that we have not imagined, by illustrations terrifying and benevolent -- a golden age that will show not what we wish, but some bare awkward truth upon which rests everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. There is justice in the world, Peter Lake, but it cannot be had without mystery.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“And they'll vote for me because I'm the best liar, because I do it honestly, with a certain finesse. They know that lies and truth are very close, and that something beautiful rests between.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“The beauty of truth is that it need not be proclaimed or believed. It skips from soul to soul, changing form each time it touches, but it is what it is, I have seen it, and someday you will, too.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Shall I show you the half-dozen other rooms in this hospital where these scenes are repeated? And what of the other hospitals? Printing House Square is small and tame. Even in the private institutions uptown you can see a show just like this: there is nothing as disgusting as an obese cadaver in which all the futile pleasures of many years finally arise to fill it full-blown with stinking rotten gases. The city is burning and under siege. And we are in a war in which everyone is killed and no one is remembered."
"What am I supposed to do, then," Peter Lake asked, "if it's like you say?"
"Is there someone you love?"
"Yes."
"A woman?"
"Yes."
"Then go home to her."
"And who will remember her?"
"No one. That's just the point. You must take care of all that now.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“Why do people resist [engines, bridges, and cities] so? They are symbols and products of the imagination, which is the force that ensures justice and historical momentum in an imperfect world, because without imagination we would not have the wherewithal to challenge certainty, and we could never rise above ourselves.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

“What is apparent is not always what is true.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from Winter's Tale

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“I know I want you," he heard himself say, all his vows and his honor all forgotten. She stood before him naked as her name day, and he was as hard as the rock around them. He had been in her half a hundred times by now, but always beneath furs, with others all around them. He had never seeen how beautiful she was. Her legs were skinny and well muscled, the hair at the juncture of her thighs a brighter red than that on her head. Does that make it even luckier? He pulled her close.

"I love the smell of you," he said. "I love your red hair. I love your mouth, and the way you kiss me. I love your smile. I love your teats." He kissed them, one and then the other. "I love your skinny legs, and what's between them." He knelt to kiss her there, lightly on her mound at first, but Ygritte moved her legs apart a little, and he saw the pink inside and kissed that as well, and tasted her.

She gave a little gasp. "If you love me all so much, why are you still dressed?" she whispered. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. Noth---oh. Oh. OHHH."

Afterward, she was almost shy, or as shy as Ygritte ever got. "The thing you did," she said, when they lay together on their piled clothes. "With your...mouth." She hesistated. "Is that...is it what lordss do to their ladies, down in the south?"

"I don't think so." No one had ever told Jon just what lords did with their ladies. "I only...wanted to kiss you there, that's all. You seemed to like it."

"Aye. I...I liked it some. No one taught you such?"

"There's been no one," he confessed. "Only you.”
― George R.R. Martin, quote from A Storm of Swords

“We might, either of us, be Queen of England and yet we'll always be nothing to our family.”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Other Boleyn Girl

“I hated myself for going, why couldn't I be the kind of person who stays?”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, quote from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

“What’s going on?” he demanded.
“The usual, old man,” I replied cheerily. “Danger, insane plans... you know, the stuff that runs in our family.”
― Richelle Mead, quote from Last Sacrifice

“I get to live forever," he repeated. Luce was still lost, but he kept talking, a stream of words pouring out of his mouth. "I get to live, and to watch babies being born, and grow up, and fall in love. I watch them have babies of their own and grow old. I watch them die. I am condemned, Luce, to watch it all over again and again. Everyone but you." His eyes were glassy. His voice dropped to a whisper. "You don't get to fall in love--"
"But...," she whispered back. "I've...fallen in love.”
― Lauren Kate, quote from Fallen

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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.

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