kwəʊt

quotes from books

[q-uo-te-blog]

To determine to go and to say it was to be halfway there.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

[q-uo-te-blog]

Alcohol buoyed you up and it washed your eyes clean.

Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith

[q-uo-te-blog]

The Adams and the Eves used to say, We are what we eat, but I prefer to say, We are what we wish. Because if you can’t wish, why bother?

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

Maybe sadness was a kind of hunger, she thought. Maybe the two went together.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

The ancestral primates fell out of the trees; then they fell from vegetarianism into meat-eating. Then they fell from instinct into reason, and thus into technology; from simple signals into complex grammar, and thus into humanity: from firelessness into fire, and thence into weaponry; and from seasonal mating into an incessant sexual twitching. Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment into the anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

Say about others as you would have them say about you. In other words, nothing.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

In any case, time is not a thing that passes, said Pilar: it’s a sea on which you float.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

She’s been having some difficulty waking up. She must fight against lethargy. It’s a strong desire – to sleep. To sleep and sleep. To sleep forever. She can’t live only in the present like a shrub. But the past is a closed door, and she can’t see any future. Maybe she’ll go on from day to day and year to year until she simply withers, folds in on herself, shrivels up like an old spider.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

…she knew she had to make a decision: did she want to live or did she want to die? If die, there were quicker ways. If live, she had to live differently.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

Our arboreal ancestors, Crake used to say. Used to shit on their enemies from above while perched in trees. All planes and rockets and bombs are simply elaborations on that primate instinct.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

Every habit he’s ever had is still there in his body, lying dormant like flowers in the desert. Given the right conditions, all his old addictions would burst into full and luxuriant bloom.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

He doesn’t know which is worse, past he can’t regain or a present that will destroy him if he looks at it too clearly. Then there’s the future. Sheer vertigo.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

[q-uo-te-blog]

I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending to have a personality. I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good, what’s coveted, what’s au courant? I think most people do this, they just don’t admit it, or else they settle on one persona because they’re too lazy or stupid to pull off a switch.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

[q-uo-te-blog]

I am something to be tossed into a junkyard, thrown into the river, if necessary. I don’t feel real anymore. I feel like I could disappear.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

[q-uo-te-blog]

Because isn’t that the point of every relationship: to be known by someone else, to be understood?

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

[q-uo-te-blog]

There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

[q-uo-te-blog]

“Sometimes if you let people do things to you, you’re really doing it to them,” Amma said, pulling another Blow Pop from her pocket. Cherry. “Know what I mean? If someone wants to do fucked-up things to you, and you let them, you’re making them more fucked up. Then you have the control. As long as you don’t go crazy.”

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn