"Some say life is the thing, but I prefer reading."
— Ruth Rendell

"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, in spite of all the people who say he is very good."
— Robert Graves

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. "
— Leo Tolstoy

"'They have not forgotten the Mysteries,' she said, ‘they have found them too difficult. They want a God who will care for them, who will not demand that they struggle for enlightenment, but who will accept them just as they are, with all their sins, and take away their sins with repentance. It is not so, it will never be so, but perhaps it is the only way the unenlightened can bear to think of their Gods.'
Lancelet smiled bitterly. ‘Perhaps a religion which demands that every man must work though lifetime after lifetime for his own salvation is too much for mankind. They want not to wait for God's justice but to see it now. And that is the lure which this new breed of priests has promised them.'
Morgaine knew that he spoke truth, and bowed her head in anguish. ‘And since their view of a God is what shapes their reality, so it shall be–the Goddess was real while mankind still paid homage to her, and created her form for themselves. Now they will make for themselves the kind of God they think they want–the kind of God they deserve, perhaps.'
Well, so it must be, for as man saw reality, so it became. "
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon. Book 4: The Prisoner in the Oak)

"There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you.
"
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon)

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude."
— Amy Tan

" There are things that happen and leave no discernible trace, are not spoken or written of, though it would be very wrong to say that subsequent events go on indifferently, all the same, as though such things had never been."
— A.S. Byatt

"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
— Emily Brontë

""Oh, what a tangled web we weave...when first we practice to deceive." "
— Walter Scott

"To hate excellence is to hate the gods."
— Mary Renault (The Persian Boy)

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."
— Charles Dickens

"Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind."
— Henry James

"I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves."
— E.M. Forster

"Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky."
— Barbara Kingsolver (The Poisonwood Bible)

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am."
— Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

"I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it calls itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defense the only arms I allow myself to use -- silence, exile, and cunning."
— James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

"We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time."
— T.S. Eliot (Four Quartets)

"To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. "
— W. Somerset Maugham

"Punctuality is the virtue of the bored."
— Evelyn Waugh

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
— C.S. Lewis

"If Beethoven had been killed in a plane crash at the age of 22, it would have changed the history of music... and of aviation."
— Tom Stoppard

"Hell is other people."
— Jean-Paul Sartre (No Exit: A Play in One Act)

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."
— Douglas Adams

"Yes, the long war on Christianity. I pray that one day we may live in an America where Christians can worship freely! In broad daylight! Openly wearing the symbols of their religion... perhaps around their necks? And maybe -- dare I dream it? -- maybe one day there can be an openly Christian President. Or, perhaps, 43 of them. Consecutively."
— Jon Stewart

"Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion."
— Jon Stewart

"If we act the truth the people who really love us are sure to come back to us in the long run"
— E.M. Forster

"If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country"
— E.M. Forster

"It's only words... unless they're true."
— David Mamet

"No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it."
— Elizabeth Peters

"The way to get on with a cat is to treat it as an equal - or even better, as the superior it knows itself to be."
— Elizabeth Peters

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
— William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well)

"For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain."
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
— Douglas Adams

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

"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)

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)

"The universe conspires to reveal the truth and to make your path easy if you have the courage to follow the signs."
— Lisa Unger

"One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. "
— Rita Mae Brown

"Every life has death and every light has shadow. Be content to stand in the light and let the shadow fall where it will."
— Mary Stewart (The Hollow Hills)

"I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be darling at it."
— Dorothy Parker

"To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods."
— Anthony Trollope (The Eustace Diamonds)

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."
— Geoffrey Chaucer

""There is no religion without love,
and people may talk as much as
they like about their religion, but
if it does not teach them to be good
and kind to man and beast,
it is all a sham."


"
— Anna Sewell

"Let My worship be in the
heart that rejoices, for behold,
all acts of love and pleasure
are My rituals."
— Doreen Valiente

"If that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find without."
— Doreen Valiente

"In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
— George Orwell

"The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
— George Orwell

"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."
— George Orwell (1984)