| Quotable Reads: A Thread for Memorable Book Quotes | - Page 4

Originally posted by: heavenlybliss

I have only read her book Still Beating, and I really liked it, but it has very very dark themes in it. Basically, a girl and her sister's fiance are kidnapped, and the kidnapper forces them to do stuff to each other in front of him (basically physical intimacy everyday), initially they are both disgusted by it and try to comfort each other through it all but eventually they start getting attracted to each other and by the time they manage to escape from the kidnapper's clutches they fall in love.

biggest ick in books is when the main characters end up with their sibling’s ex or fiancé. It just feels so wrong

Yeah I’m aware of the plot of Still Beating, that’s why been staying away from picking it up

Originally posted by: WildestDreams

One of my biggest ick in books is when the main characters end up with their sibling’s ex or fiancé. It just feels so wrong

I dont exactly remember because its been so long but I think it was shown something like her sister not really being interested in the guy ya aisa kuch scene tha, so I didnt feel as bad about them hooking up

Wrong place, wrong time by Gillian McAllister

If tomorrow will be yesterday, does anything matter, anyway?

Banter can hide the worst sins. Some people laugh to hide their shame, they laugh instead of saying I feel embarrassed and small.

Time is only linear because of cause and effect.

Time is just a way of us thinking we are free agents. That our actions have cause and effect. That's what makes us think that time flows in one direction, like a river.

This banter of theirs .... perhaps it does more than it purports to. Perhaps it evades the deeper issues, somehow. Jen thinks sometimes that Kelly is so busy laughing that he never does anything else. Like show how he feels. What's the bedrock, underneath the banter? Their family has always been so full of charm, exactly what she wanted after her repressed upbringing. But isn't humor a different kind of repression?

It isn't her fault.

It isn't his fault.

She knows she mothered him well enough. She knows because of his eyes. They are lit with love.

Oh, the days when people read novels to pass the time.

She'd lived her life once, and missed it all, but her wise mind, her subconscious, it knew things.

Thinking about how we never see the near misses that slide past us, just missing us, arrows just grazing our skin.

Travis by Mia Sheridan

Weren’t all of us a compilation of the versions of ourselves we’d once been? Maybe if we were lucky—and insightful—we learned how to extract the good and leave the bad behind, the parts that hadn’t worked for us and instead brought nothing but pain.

“All the things that have brought us pain carve a distinct hole in our heart, and there’s someone else out there with the perfect something that will fill the void. And in turn, we get to do the same for them. And suddenly, it all makes sense. It all fits. Because we haven’t been forsaken. We’ve been prepared.”

“I know something about keeping people at arm’s length, by only letting those in who pose no risk to your heart. I understand the need. I’ve done it all my life. But I’m telling you now that I don’t want to do that anymore. Give us a chance, Haven.”

“I want you to be happy,” he said. “I want you to have the perfect life, everything you want.” He looked down. “Even if that’s not me.”

“I want you to know me. I want to tell you about my past, my life, the things that have hurt and all that I was running from. Not to wallow in it but because it’s part of who I am, and I’m proud that I survived it.”

“I know fear.

I lived it. Twice.

During Mum’s accident and my hit-and-run. However, fear isn’t a feeling someone can get used to. It’s not a feeling that gets better with time.

If anything, it gets worse.”

Excerpt From

Cruel King: A Dark New Adult Romance

Rina Kent

This material may be protected by copyright.

“Those who don’t play chess think the king is the strongest piece because the game ends when he dies, but they don’t stop to think that if the queen dies first, the king doesn’t have a chance to survive.”

Excerpt From

Cruel King: A Dark New Adult Romance

Rina Kent

This material may be protected by copyright.

"And God said “Love Thy Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself."

"Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow."

"Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn? Is not silence more painful than death?"

"By that tomb grows Gibran’s sorrow together with the cypress trees, and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma, joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the earth."

- Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already."

"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."

"Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing."

"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad."

- George Orwell, 1984

"'D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less.’"

"In that brief moment, Velutha looked up and saw things that he hadn’t seen before. Things that had been out of bounds so far, obscured by history’s blinkers."

"Chacko . . . though he was the Man of the House, though he said, ‘My pickles, my jam, my curry powders,’ was so busy trying on different costumes that he blurred the battle lines."

"And the Air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside."

- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

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Originally posted by: ThaneOfElsinore

"And God said “Love Thy Enemy,” and I obeyed him and loved myself."

"Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow."

"Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn? Is not silence more painful than death?"

"By that tomb grows Gibran’s sorrow together with the cypress trees, and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma, joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the earth."

- Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

"The best books... are those that tell you what you know already."

"If you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself."

"Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing."

"There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad."

- George Orwell, 1984

"'D’you know what happens when you hurt people?’ Ammu said. ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less.’"

"In that brief moment, Velutha looked up and saw things that he hadn’t seen before. Things that had been out of bounds so far, obscured by history’s blinkers."

"Chacko . . . though he was the Man of the House, though he said, ‘My pickles, my jam, my curry powders,’ was so busy trying on different costumes that he blurred the battle lines."

"And the Air was full of Thoughts and Things to Say. But at times like these, only the Small Things are ever said. The Big Things lurk unsaid inside."

- Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things

This material may be protected by copyright.

"Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow."

"Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn? Is not silence more painful than death?"

These two quotes are beautiful. The first one suggests the dual nature of solitude, which is interesting. Solitude seems peaceful and tender, however, it only knows how to control a person. Even though solitude seems soft from the outside, it can make a person depressed and sad. The second one focuses on two different scenarios where a person is dead and another person is a prisoner. Maybe dead means someone who is emotionally dead, and he has lost the capacity of enjoying beautiful things, such as the singing of the Nightingale and the fragrance of a rose. Prisoner probably means someone who is trapped inside the cage of regret. sorrow or trauma. That person doesn't follow the ray of hope (maybe the breeze of dawn is a symbol here). Here, the narrator says that an emotionally dead person and a prisoner of regret or sorrow becomes silent, and that's even more unbearable than death.

I know nothing about the story, so I analysed the quotes without context. Therefore, maybe I'm wrong and I misunderstood the actual meanings of these quotes. Still, these quotes seem nice to me.

Originally posted by: Shirsha

"Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow."

"Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn? Is not silence more painful than death?"

These two quotes are beautiful. The first one suggests the dual nature of solitude, which is interesting. Solitude seems peaceful and tender, however, it only knows how to control a person. Even though solitude seems soft from the outside, it can make a person depressed and sad. The second one focuses on two different scenarios where a person is dead and another person is a prisoner. Maybe dead means someone who is emotionally dead, and he has lost the capacity of enjoying beautiful things, such as the singing of the Nightingale and the fragrance of a rose. Prisoner probably means someone who is trapped inside the cage of regret. sorrow or trauma. That person doesn't follow the ray of hope (maybe the breeze of dawn is a symbol here). Here, the narrator says that an emotionally dead person and a prisoner of regret or sorrow becomes silent, and that's even more unbearable than death.

I know nothing about the story, so I analysed the quotes without context. Therefore, maybe I'm wrong and I misunderstood the actual meanings of these quotes. Still, these quotes seem nice to me.

That's a beautiful interpretation, Shirsha. The book is about Gibran's/the narrator's first experience with unrequited love. His lady love actually gets betrothed to an orthodox man in Beirut, Lebanon. Gibran is left alone and Selma gets into a loveless marriage where she is tortured daily. They meet secretly for some time but eventually stop since she thinks her father-in-law is suspicious of her. Selma continues to struggle against reality and her dreams until she gets pregnant, but as soon as she delivers her baby, the baby dies and she dies right afterwards, getting the salvation she always dreamed of. Gibran learns this and is left all alone, breaking down in the last scene.

The quote actually occurs when she asks him to stop meeting her. So yes, the narrator who earlier in the book said that he became full of life when he first saw Selma, is emotionally dead after she stops meeting him. Also, the silence of knowing that she exists but will never be his or he wouldn't be able to talk to her will be more unbearable than his own death.

Your interpretations are quite wonderful in the context of the story as well.