“In reality, there is no materialist like the artist, asking back from life the double and the wastage and the cost on what he puts out in emotional usury.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“I hope I'll never get ambitious enough to try anything. It's so much nicer to be damned sure I could do it better than other people - and I might not could if I tried...”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“It was not, Zelda wrote, prosperity or the softness of life, or any instability that marred the war generation; it was a great emotional disappointment resulting from the fact that life moved in poetic gestures when they were younger and had since settled back into buffoonery.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“He fought for his very survival. If he fought dirty sometimes that does not diminish the fact that he refused to give up.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“I was in love with a whirlwind and I must spin a net big enough to catch it,”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“Zelda was a creature who overflowed with activity, radiant with desire to take from life every chance her charm, youth, and intelligence provided so abundantly.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“It’s the first time I’ve seen early morning in a terribly long time— The sun all yellow and red, like a huge luminous peach hanging on a black shadow-tree—just visible thru the mist—”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“Sweetheart, please don’t worry about me— I want to always be a help—You know I am all yours and love you with all my heart.”
― Nancy Milford, quote from Zelda
“I wondered, what other gifts I got bottled up inside me? That question had started to gnaw on me some.”
― Susan Crandall, quote from Whistling Past the Graveyard
“Don’t be afraid of your dark places,” Mom told her. “If you can shine a light on them, you’ll find treasure there.”
― Jeannette Walls, quote from The Silver Star
“Megan, I’m pretty sure none of my family is going to break out into song like in a Bollywood movie tonight,” he said, with amusement ringing in his voice.”
― Katie Ashley, quote from The Pairing
“Yet for all the aggravation of tending them, it was not so terrible an ordeal. He’d never kept a pet before and keeping close to fifty of them all at once in the wildlands was not how any man ought to begin, but he seemed to be having some success at it and he had to admit, he liked having someone to talk to, even if she couldn’t talk back.”
― R. Lee Smith, quote from The Last Hour of Gann
“It was no longer her absence that wounded me, but my growing indifference to it. Forgetting, however calming, was also a reminder of infidelity to what I had at one time held so dear.”
― Alain de Botton, quote from Essays in Love
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.