"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."
— Kurt Vonnegut (A Man Without a Country)

"A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
enough money within her control to move out
and rent a place of her own even if she never wants
to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her
dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ...
a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a past juicy enough that she's looking forward to
retelling it in her old age....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .....
a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black
lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
one friend who always makes her laugh... and one who
lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone
else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a
recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ....
a feeling of control over her destiny...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to fall in love without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
HOW TO QUIT A JOB,
BREAK UP WITH A LOVER,
AND CONFRONT A FRIEND WITHOUT RUINING THE FRIENDSHIP...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
when to try harder... and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that she can't change the length of her calves,
the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
that her childhood may not have been perfect...but it's over...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she would and wouldn't do for love or more...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
how to live alone... even if she doesn't like it...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
whom she can trust,
whom she can't,
and why she shouldn't
take it personally...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
where to go...
be it to her best friend's kitchen table...
or a charming inn in the woods...
when her soul needs soothing...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW...
what she can and can't accomplish in a day...
a month...and a year..."
— Pamela Redmond Satran

"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh?' he whispered.
'Yes, Piglet?'
'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you."
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

"Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men. "
— Neil Gaiman (Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch)

"In a way, it's nice to know that there are Greek gods out there, because you have somebody to blame when things go wrong. For instance, when you're walking away from a bus that's just been attacked by monster hags and blown up by lightning, and it's raining on top of everything else, most people might think that's just really bad luck; when you're a half-blood, you understand that some devine force is really trying to mess up your day."
— Rick Riordan (The Titan's Curse)

"Aphrodite had the beauty; Zeus had the thunderbolts. Everyone loved Aphrodite, but everyone listened to Zeus."
— Esther M. Friesner (Nobody's Princess)

"The man may be the head of the house, but the women is the neck, and she can turn the head anyway she wants."
— My Big Fat Greek Wedding

"cold as winter, strong as stone;
she faced the darkness all alone.
a silver goddess; a reflection.
a mirage; a recollection.
no return; no turning back.
the past is gone; the future, black.
serpents gather in their nest,
and she stands above the rest.
shadows hunt; she hunts the shadow.
the moon is risen; she stands below.
she views her world through the eyes of others.
black and white; there are no colors,
as she looks down upon a shattered youth.
a shattered mirror shows a shattered truth."
— nikolas ravena

"Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses."
— Tom Robbins (Jitterbug Perfume)

""god lets bad things happen to good people to test their faith, but the goddess knows the faithful and knows that bad things only make people stronger. and there's nothing wrong with stronger.""
— Jennifer Dimarco

"Young man,
two are the forces most precious to mankind.
The first is Demeter, the Goddess.
She is the Earth -- or any name you wish to call her --
and she sustains humanity with solid food.
Next came Dionysus, the son of the virgin,
bringing the counterpart to bread: wine
and the blessings of life's flowing juices.
His blood, the blood of the grape,
lightens the burden of our mortal misery.
Though himself a God, it is his blood we pour out
to offer thanks to the Gods. And through him, we are blessed."
— Euripides (The Bacchae)

"Vera incessu patuit dea.
(The goddess indubitable was revealed in her step.)"
— Publius Vergilius Maro (The Aeneid)

"Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (Idylls of the King and a Selection of Poems)

"None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are."
— Anne Rice (The Vampire Lestat)

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."
— Virginia Woolf

"I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal."
— Jane Austen

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off."
— Gloria Steinem

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight."
— Phyllis Diller

"People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. --Margaret Lea"
— Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)

"No ruler should put troops into the field merely to gratify his
own spleen; no general should fight a battle simply out of pique.
If it is to your advantage, make a forward move; if not, stay
where you are.
Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded
by content.
But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again
into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life."
— Sun Tzu

"Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting."
— Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: (1)
He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. (2) He
will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.
(3) He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout
all its ranks. (4) He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take
the enemy unprepared. (5) He will win who has military capacity and
is not interfered with by the sovereign."
— Sun Tzu

"Adam Maitland: What are your qualifications?
Betelgeuse [suddenly calm, speaking in a very cultured voice]: Ah. Well...I attended Juilliard...I'm a graduate of the Harvard business school. I travel quite extensively. I lived through the Black Plague [façade starts to slip] and had a pretty good time during that. I've seen The EXORCIST ABOUT A HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVEN TIMES, AND IT KEEPS GETTING FUNNIER EVERY –SINGLE--TIME I SEE IT!--NOT TO MENTION THE FACT THAT YOU'RE TALKING TO A DEAD GUY! NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK? You think I'm qualified?
"
— --from Beetlejuice, screenplay by Tim Burton, Michael McDowell, Larry Wilson and Michael Skaaren

"Someone told me the delightful story of the crusader who put a chastity belt on his wife and gave the key to his best friend for safekeeping, in case of his death. He had ridden only a few miles away when his friend, riding hard, caught up with him, saying 'You gave me the wrong key!'"
— Anaïs Nin

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
— Anaïs Nin

"How wrong it is for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself."
— Anaïs Nin

"From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life."
— Anaïs Nin

"It was lonely on the hill, and cold. And all you could do was keep going. You could scream, cry, and stamp your feet, but apart from making you feel warmer, it wouldn’t do any good. You could say it was unfair, and that was true, but the universe didn’t care because it didn’t know what “fair” meant. That was the big problem about being a witch. It was up to you. It was always up to you."
— Terry Pratchett (Wintersmith)

"The witching hour, somebody had once whispered to her, was a special moment in the middle of the night when every child and every grown-up was in a deep deep sleep, and all the dark things came out from hiding and had the world all to themselves."
— Roald Dahl (The BFG)

""Blessings be on this house," Granny said, perfunctorily. It was always a good opening remark for a witch. It concentrated people's minds on what other things might be on this house."
— Terry Pratchett (Witches Abroad)

"Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue."
— Neil Gaiman

"I'm not a witch, I'm your wife! But after what you just said, I'm not sure I want to be that anymore!"
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"(Buttercup kisses the senile King)
The King: What was that for?

Buttercup: Because you have always been so kind to me, and I won't be seeing you again since I'm killing myself once we reach the honeymoon suite.

The King: Won't that be nice. She kissed me!"
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"Your ears you keep, so that every shriek of every child shall be yours to cherish—every babe that weeps in fear at your approach, every woman that cries ‘Dear God, what is that thing?’ will reverberate forever with your perfect ears."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
— Maya Angelou

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
— Abraham Lincoln

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
— Oscar Wilde

"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
— Mark Twain

"Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women?"
— Virginia Woolf

"When the Day of Judgment dawns and people, great and small, come marching in to receive their heavenly rewards, the Almighty will gaze upon the mere bookworms and say to Peter, “Look, these need no reward. We have nothing to give them. They have loved reading.”"
— Virginia Woolf