“Stars on our door, stars in our eyes, stars exploding in the bits of our brains where the common sense should have been”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“There was a house we all had in common and it was called the past, even though we'd lived in different rooms.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Hope for the best, expect the worst.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Our fingernails match our toenails, match our lipstick match our rouge...The habit of applying warpaint outlasts the battle.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“He was a lovely man in many ways. But he kept on insisting on forgiving me when there was nothing to forgive.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“A mother is always a mother, since a mother is a biological fact, whilst a father is a movable feast.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Wars are facts we cannot fuck away, Perry; nor laugh away, either.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“The lovely Hazard girls', they used to call them. Huh. Lovely is as lovely does; if they looked like what they behave like, they'd frighten little children.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“...as if Hollywood were the name of the enchanted forest where you loose yourself and find yourself, again; the wood that changes you; the wood where you go mad; the wood where the shadows life longer than you do.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“...a great future behind him, already”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“It doesn't matter if what happens next spoils everything; the anticipation itself is always pure.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Sorridi in pubblico, piangi in pubblico, vivi in pubblico, crepa in pubblico. C'era, sui loro visi, un'emozione schietta, atipica per gli attori. Stasera erano al telegiornale. E' la cosa peggiore veder soffrire i propri figli.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“La commedia è una tragedia che capita agli altri.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“[...] certo, una madre è sempre una madre, perché è un fatto biologico, mentre un padre è una festa mobile.”
― Angela Carter, quote from Wise Children
“Writers don't make any money at all. We make about a dollar. It is terrible. But then again we don't work either. We sit around in our underwear until noon then go downstairs and make coffee, fry some eggs, read the paper, read part of a book, smell the book, wonder if perhaps we ourselves should work on our book, smell the book again, throw the book across the room because we are quite jealous that any other person wrote a book, feel terribly guilty about throwing the schmuck's book across the room because we secretly wonder if God in heaven noticed our evil jealousy, or worse, our laziness. We then lie across the couch facedown and mumble to God to forgive us because we are secretly afraid He is going to dry up all our words because we envied another man's stupid words. And for this, as I said, we are paid a dollar. We are worth so much more.”
― Donald Miller, quote from Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
“It gave me a sharp kind of sadness to think that no matter how much I loved him and tried to put him back together again, he might stay broken forever.”
― Paula McLain, quote from The Paris Wife
“Authoritarian Communism is, and should be, forever tainted by those real-world laboratories. But what of the contemporary crusade to liberate world markets? The coups, wars and slaughters to instill and maintain pro-corporate regimes have never been treated as capitalist crimes but have instead been written off as the excess of overzealous dictators, as hot fronts in the Cold War, and now of the War on Terror. If the most committed opponents of the corporatist economic model are systematically eliminated, whether in Argentina in the seventies or in Iraq today, that suppression is explained as part of the dirty fight against Communism or terrorism - almost never as the fight for the advancement of pure capitalism.”
― Naomi Klein, quote from The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
“He looked at her and tilted his head very slightly in wonder. He had forgotten, as he always forgot, how beautiful she was. Her hair was held away from her face by the ruby and gold headband that crossed her dark brows. Her skin was flawless and so fair as to be translucent. She dressed as always in an imitation of Hephestia, but it was far easier to imagine the impersonal cruelty of the Great Goddess than to see cruelty in the face in the Queen of Attolia. Looking at her, Eugenides smiled.
Attolia saw his smile, without any hint of self-effacement or flattery or opportunism, a smile wholly unlike that of any member of her court, and she hit him across the face with her hand. His head rocked on his shoulders. He made no sound but sank to his knees...”
― Megan Whalen Turner, quote from The Queen of Attolia
“Clic Clac. Plus personne ne bouge. Moment suspendu. Bonheur.”
― Anna Gavalda, quote from Hunting and Gathering
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.