"And the peace which I always found in the silence and emptiness of the moors filled me utterly"
— James Herriot

"They would all be sorry... particularly the duck."
— Angie Sage

"Nice jewelry and a boys corpse. Oh you're so pretty."
— Koushun Takami Battle Royale

"Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before."
— Shel Silverstein

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein

"He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning to a point at the birch tree behind him saying the the tone of their childhood game:

'I'd wish you'd learn to run faster I'll always have to wait for you'

'Will you wait for me?' she asked gaily,

He answered without smiling
Always"
— Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged

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

"Til shade is gone,
til water is gone
Into the shadow with teeth bared
Screaming defiance with the last breath
To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day."
— Robert Jordan (The Dragon Reborn)

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"I've learned two things in my life. One that love is the beginning and end of all meaning. And two that it is the same thing whatever shape our souls have taken on this journey. Love is love. Is love. "
— Clive Barker

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life."
— Mark Twain

"We are the star and the darkness it peirces"
— Clive Barker Galilee

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"A man always assumes that others are as virtuous as himself"
— Orson Scott Card

"Was everyone followed in the moonlight?"
— F. Scott Fizgerald This side of Paradise

"Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly."
— Cornelia Funke (Inkheart)

"Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times?" Mo had said..."As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells...and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower...both strange and familiar."
— Cornelia Funke (Inkspell)

"Books have to be heavy because the whole world's inside them."
— Cornelia Funke (Inkheart)

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained and the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the "good" living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather rambling about his youth.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have burned the pink candle sculped like a rose before it melted
in storage.

I would have sat on the lawn with my children and not worried about grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television, and more
while watching life.

I would have gone to bed when I was sick, instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment, realising that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner."

There would have been more "I love you's" and more "I'm sorry's"

. . . but mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute . . .
look at it and really see it . . . and never give it back."
— Erma Bombeck

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
— Albert Einstein

"Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before."
— Mae West

"I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it."
— Mae West

"When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better. "
— Mae West

"Good women are no fun... The only good woman I can recall in history was Betsy Ross. And all she ever made was a flag."
— Mae West

"The major problem- one of the major problems, for there are several- one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of whom manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
— Douglas Adams

"A towel, it says, is about the most massively usual thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have."
— Douglas Adams (The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story)

"Sometimes people are beautiful.
Not in looks.
Not in what they say.
Just in what they are."
— Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)

"Maybe everyone can live beyond what they're capable of."
— Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)

"Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness."
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world.

She was the book thief without the words.

Trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, Liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain."
— Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)

"Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you've finished just to stay near it."
— Markus Zusak

"You're saying that our souls and the stars and the wings of a butterfly are all somehow connected? "
— T.A. Barron

"The high point of your life was when you knocked me down"
— Nancy Farmer A girl named Disaster

"Down there the nights are bright and nobody beleives in the Devil"
— Cornelia Funke (Inkheart)

"Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another. "
— Ayn Rand

"A man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions.... He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer--because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement."
— Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

"How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em."
— Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends)

"If you are a dreamer come in
If you are a dreamer a wisher a liar
A hoper a pray-er a magic-bean-buyer
If youre a pretender com sit by my fire
For we have some flax golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!"
— Shel Silverstein

"So I'm all of love that could make it today."
— Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends)

"Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or, later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list.
It was a very long and very green night."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

""My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father...Prepare to Die!""
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"But when a girl gives a boy a dead squid - that had to mean something."
— William Goldman (The Silent Gondoliers)

"I write out of revenge."
— William Goldman

"...we accept the love we think we deserve."
— Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)

"book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. it is not a hobby. those who do it must do it. those who do not do it, think of it as a cousin of stamp collecting, a sister of the trophy cabinet, bastard of a sound bank account and a weak mind."
— Jeanette Winterson

"Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity."
— G.K. Chesterton