“They're afraid of change, and we must change. They're afraid of the young, and we are the young. They're afraid of music, and music is our life. They're afraid of books, and knowledge, and ideas. They're most afraid of our magic.”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“You know things have gone bad when military marches pass for pop music.”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“Have you been playing in toxic waste lately? ”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“Margo, they're afraid of us. They're afraid of everything.' And then I kept on talking without really thinking, until it turned into a chant:
They're afraid of change, and we must change.
They're afraid of the young, and we are the young.
They're afraid of music, and music is our life.
They're afraid of books, and knowledge, and ideas.
They're most afraid of our magic.”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“Until now, I never noticed how much fantasy had to do with reality.”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“seize the moment, however worried you may be about what’s coming next. It’s your brain, it’s your life, it’s your attitude…. Go out there and fill up with sights, sounds, and ideas that are bigger than yourself.”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
“She had a crooked nose and a pointy chin with a huge mole that had wiry black hairs growing out of it. Heck, if the New Order was really looking to arrest witches…”
― James Patterson, quote from Witch & Wizard
James Patterson
Born place: in Newburgh, New York, The United States
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“On his coronation in 1802, Gia-long wished to call his realm ‘Nam Viêt’ and sent envoys to gain Peking’s assent. The Manchu Son of Heaven, however, insisted that it be ‘Viêt Nam.’ The reason for this inversion is as follows: ‘Viêt Nam’ (or in Chinese Yüeh-nan) means, roughly, ‘to the south of Viêt (Yüeh),’ a realm conquered by the Han seventeen centuries earlier and reputed to cover today’s Chinese provinces of Kwangtung and Kwangsi, as well as the Red River valley. Gia-long’s ‘Nam Viêt,’ however, meant ‘Southern Viêt/Yüeh,’ in effect a claim to the old realm. In the words of Alexander Woodside, ‘the name “Vietnam” as a whole was hardly so well esteemed by Vietnamese rulers a century ago, emanating as it had from Peking, as it is in this century. An artificial appellation then, it was used extensively neither by the Chinese nor by the Vietnamese. The Chinese clung to the offensive T’ang word “Annam” . . . The Vietnamese court, on the other hand, privately invented another name for its kingdom in 1838–39 and did not bother to inform the Chinese. Its new name, Dai Nam, the “Great South” or “Imperial South,” appeared with regularity on court documents and official historical compilations. But it has not survived to the present.’3 This new name is interesting in two respects. First, it contains no ‘Viet’-namese element. Second, its territorial reference seems purely relational – ‘south’ (of the Middle Kingdom).4 That today’s Vietnamese proudly defend a Viêet Nam scornfully invented by a nineteenth-century Manchu dynast reminds us of Renan’s dictum that nations must have ‘oublié bien des choses,’ but also, paradoxically, of the imaginative power of nationalism. If”
― Benedict Anderson, quote from Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
“If they had been riding in a car, she would have waited for him to go around and open the door for her, but riding in a truck is different”
― Beverly Cleary, quote from Fifteen
“А сверх того, вы все, вся ваша братия, — продолжал неугомонный Михалевич, — начитанные байбаки. Вы знаете, на какую ножку немец хромает, знаете, что плохо у англичан и у французов, — и вам ваше жалкое знание в подспорье идет, лень вашу постыдную, бездействие ваше гнусное оправдывает. Иной даже гордится тем, что я, мол, вот умница — лежу, а те, дураки, хлопочут.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Home of the Gentry
“Why, sir," said he, looking about him, "what splendour I see: gold lace, breeches, cocked hats. Allow me to recommend a sandwich. And would you be contemplating an attack, at all?"
"It had crossed my mind, I must admit," said Jack. "Indeed, I may go so far as to say, that I am afraid a conflict is now virtually inevitable. Did you notice we have cleared for action?”
― Patrick O'Brian, quote from The Mauritius Command
“It was 1976.
It was one of the darkest days of my life when that nurse, Mrs. Shimmer, pulled out a maxi pad that measured the width and depth of a mattress and showed us how to use it. It had a belt with it that looked like a slingshot that possessed the jaw-dropping potential to pop a man's head like a gourd. As she stretched the belt between the fingers of her two hands, Mrs. Shimmer told us becoming a woman was a magical and beautiful experience.
I remember thinking to myself, You're damn right it had better be magic, because that's what it's going to take to get me to wear something like that, Tinkerbell! It looked like a saddle. Weighed as much as one, too. Some girls even cried.
I didn't.
I raised my hand.
"Mrs. Shimmer," I asked the cautiously, "so what kind of security napkins do boys wear when their flower pollinates? Does it have a belt, too?"
The room got quiet except for a bubbling round of giggles.
"You haven't been paying attention, have you?" Mrs. Shimmer accused sharply. "Boys have stamens, and stamens do not require sanitary napkins. They require self control, but you'll learn that soon enough."
I was certainly hoping my naughty bits (what Mrs. Shimmer explained to us was like the pistil of a flower) didn't get out of control, because I had no idea what to do if they did.”
― Laurie Notaro, quote from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
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The DispossessedBookQuoters 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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