Acute Reader > Acute's Quotes

“Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, he does not lay eggs, he is too weak to pull the plough, he cannot run fast enough to catch rabbits. Yet he is lord of all the animals. He sets them to work, he gives back to them the bare minimum that will prevent them from starving, and the rest he keeps for himself.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The Seven Commandments:
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Can you not understand that liberty is worth more than just ribbons?”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Angry people are not always wise.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

-Mr. Darcy”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“He is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. So far we are equal.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”
― Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

“I wasn't aware that words could hold so much. I didn't know a sentence could be so full.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“If anyone would understand loneliness, the moon would.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Sometimes she heard night-sounds she didn’t know or jumped from lightning too close, but whenever she stumbled, it was the land who caught her. Until at last, at some unclaimed moment, the heart-pain seeped away like water into sand. Still there, but deep. Kya laid her hand upon the breathing, wet earth, and the marsh became her mother.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“I am haunted by humans.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“Even death has a heart.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
― Fitzgerald F. Scott, The Great Gatsby

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“We should always make time for the things we like. If we don't, we might forget how to be happy.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“Because even the bravest of us can still be afraid sometimes, so long as we don’t let our fear become all we know.”
― T.J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“Thinking about history makes me wonder how I’ll fit into it one day, I guess. And you too. I kinda wish people still wrote like that. History, huh? Bet we could make some.”
― Casey McQuiston, Red, White & Royal Blue