"There are always surprises. Life may be inveterately grim and the surprises disproportionately unpleasant, but it would be hardly worth living if there were no exceptions, no sunny days, no acts of random kindness."
— T.C. Boyle - The Tortilla Curtain

"Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin, as self-neglecting."
— William Shakespeare

"I mean it's not egocentric and selfish, the way I used to be. Now it has a real philosophical basis. Don't mix me up with biology. Look at me, what do you see?

I am ambitious, but it's a long-range thing with me. I have my confidential sights on a star, but there's half a lifetime to get to it."
— Grace Paley - The Little Disturbances of Man

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question. And that is: Who knows how to make love stay?
Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself."
— Tom Robbins

"Nothing more exhilarating ... than saving yourself by the simple act of waking."
— Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

"...that the basic transaction of life itself was a sad, endless amalgam of public endurance and private indulgence."
— Stefan Merrill Block (The Story of Forgetting: A Novel)

"Because a mother's love is God's greatest joke. And besides - who is to say what is the first and what is the final cause?

-that I was living my life in inverted commas. I could pick up my keys and go 'home' where I could 'have sex' with my 'husband' just like lots of other people did. And I didn't seem to mind the inverted commas...

This is how we all survive. We default to the oldest scar.

So I left the house with a howl of regret for all I had been denied, though there was nothing there I actually wanted. I wanted out of there, that was all. I wanted a larger life.

My children are of a different breed. They seem to grow like plants, to be made of twig and blossom and not of meat.

There are long stretches of time when I don't know what I am doing, or what I have done - nothing mostly, but sometimes it would be nice to know what kind of nothing that was...I try not to drink before half past five, but I always do drink - from the top of the wine bottle to the last, little drop. It is the only way I know to make the day end."
— Anne Enright

"The irony of acquiring a foreign tongue is that I have amassed just enough cheap, serviceable words to fuel my desires and never, never enough lavish, impudent ones to feed them."
— Monique Truong (The Book of Salt: A Novel)

"Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."
— Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)

"Wittgenstein once wrote that when the eye sees something beautiful, the hand wants to draw it. I wish I could draw you."
— Nicole Krauss (The History of Love)

"That day I carried the dream around like a full glass of water, moving gracefully so I would not lose any of it."
— Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories)

"... we had once called out hello into the cauldron of the world and then run away before anyone could respond."
— Miranda July (No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories)

"They hugged, pressing each other's arms, and their brief embraces buoyed them up - forbearance and grace passing back and forth between them like a piece of shared clothing, designated for use by whoever needed it most."
— Alice Elliott Dark (In The Gloaming)

"Are you a politician?
I hate politicians, he said. And, in any case, there's no such thing anymore: only sycophants and dissidents."
— Daniel Alarcón (Lost City Radio)

"Shame isn't bad, her voice from somewhere else insists. Nor the humility that is its gift."
— William Trevor (Cheating at Canasta: Stories)

"I had a Viking sense of entitlement to whatever provisions I could plunder."
— Jonathan Franzen (The Discomfort Zone)

"Reasons always came with a purpose, to give the appearance of a struggle between principle and desire. Principle had power only until you found what you had to have."
— Tobias Wolff (Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories)

"They walked side by side along the dark beach toward Monterey, where the lights hung, necklace above necklace against the hill. The sand dunes crouched along the back of the beach like tired hounds, resting: and the waves gently practiced at striking, and hissed a little. The night was cold and aloof, and its warm life was withdrawn, so that it was full of bitter warnings to man that he is alone in the world, and alone among his fellows; that he has no comfort owing him from anywhere."
— John Steinbeck (Tortilla Flat)

"We must admit that he had eyes like drenched violets, so large that the water seemed to have brimmed in them and widened them; and a brow like the swelling of a marble dome pressed between the two blank medallions which were his temples."
— Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

"Nature is made to conspire with spirit to emancipate us."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness --
'Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail --
Assent -- and you are sane --
Demur -- you're straightway dangerous --
And handled with a Chain --"
— Emily Dickinson

"All these tears shed in the world, where do they go? If one could capture all of them, they could water the parched. Then perhaps these tears would have value and all this grief would have some meaning. Otherwise, it was all a waste, just an endless cycle of birth and death; of love and loss."
— Thrity Umrigar

"The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience."
— Flannery O'Connor

"For years I wondered why dreams are so often dull when related, and this morning I find the answer, which is very simple - like most answers, you have always known it: No context ... like a stuffed animal set on the floor of a bank."
— William S. Burroughs (My Education: A Book of Dreams)

"Le nom d'amant peut-être offense son courage;
Mais il en a les yeux, s'il n'en a le langage."
— Jean Racine

"Each man's preference is the only standard for him, the only one which he can accept, the only one which can command him."
— Mark Twain

"Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the power of the sun, to pacify Hell, to identify with the primordial spark, to feed on them arrow of the volcano. It's not the tobacco we're after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning."
— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

"I gave my mother a matching set [of mugs] for Christmas, and she accepted them as graciously as possible, announcing that they would make the perfect pet bowls. The mugs were set on the kitchen floor and remained there until the cat chipped a tooth and went on a hunger strike."
— David Sedaris

"When a hurricane damaged my father's house, my brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers of beer, and an enormous Fuck-It Bucket - a plastic pail filled with jawbreakers and bite-size candy bars. ("When shit brings you, just say 'fuck it,' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.")"
— David Sedaris

"It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. "A bow tie announces to the world you can no longer get an erection."
— David Sedaris

"Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.

The rigors of learning how to do long division have been a traditional part of childhood, just like learning to smoke. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the two go hand in hand. Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke. "
— Fran Lebowitz (Metropolitan Life/Social Studies)

"We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. The writer's job is to turn the unspeakable into words - not just into any words, but if we can, into rhythm and blues."
— Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
— Charles Bukowski