"Be not the slave of your own past - plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea."
— Jack Kerouac

"I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living."
— Anaïs Nin

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
— Albert Einstein

"I am not young enough to know everything."
— Oscar Wilde

"I am a Woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal Woman,
that's me."
— Maya Angelou

"I am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass"
— Cassandra Clare (City of Bones)

"HOROSCOPE:
Today is a good time for making new friends. A good deed may have unforeseen consequences. Don’t upset any druids. You will soon be going on a very strange journey. Your lucky food is small cucumbers. People pointing knives at you are probably up to no good. PS, we really mean it about the druids."
— Terry Pratchett

"We now understand that higher-level thinking is more likely to occur in the brain of a student who is emotionally secure than in the brain of a student who is scared, upset, anxious, or stressed."
— Mawhinney and Sagan

"Take every birthday with a grain of salt. This works better if the salt accompanies a large margarita."
— Maxine of greeting card fame, on aging

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
— Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time)

"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)

"So, I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you."
— Paulo Coelho

"They're in love. Fuck the war."
— Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow)

"The visions you glorify in your mind,
The ideals you enthrone in your heart..
This you will build your life by...
This you will become."
— James Allen

"Strange children should smile at each other and say, "Let's play.""
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender Is the Night)

"Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart."
— Yann Martel (Life of Pi)

""the natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster. strangely enough it all works out in the end... it's a mystery.""
— Tom Stoppard

"Solar Eclipse

Each morning
I wake invisible.

I make a needle
from a porcupine quill,
sew feet to legs,
lift spine onto my thighs.

I put on my rib and collarbone.

I pin an ear to my head,
hear the waxwing's yellow cry.
I open my mouth for purple berries,
stick on periwinkle eyes.

I almost know what it is to be seen.

My throat enlarges from anger.
I make a hand to hold my pain.

My heart a hole the size of the sun's eclipse.
I push through the dark circle's
tattered edge of light.

All day I struggle with one hair after another
until the moon moves from the face of the sun
and there is a strange light
as though from a kerosene lamp in a cabin.

I pun on a dress,
a shawl over my shoulders.

My threads knotted and scissors gleaming.

Now I know I am seen.
I have a shadow.

I extend my arms,
dance and chant in the sun's new light.

I put a hat and coat on my shadow,
another larger dress.
I put on more shawls and blouses and underskirts
until even the shadow has substance
"
— Diane Glancy

"What a strange world this is when you can have as much sex as you like but love is taboo."
— Jeanette Winterson (Powerbook)

"It was like the beginning of life and laughter. It was the real meaning of the sun"
— Charles Bukowski (Factotum)

"Operation Self-Esteem--Day Fucking One."
— Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia)

"I once asked a Jesuit preist what was the best short prayer he knew. He said "Fuck it." as in "Fuck it, it's in Gods hands.""
— Anthony Hopkins

"I may have fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand here before you today beholden to no human cocksucker"
— Ellsworth

"Fucking two things up at the same time isn`t multitasking"
— Dick Masterson (Men Are Better Than Women)

"You can spend minutes, hours, days, weeks, or even months over-analyzing a situation; trying to put the pieces together, justifying what could've, would've happened... or you can just leave the pieces on the floor and move the fuck on."
— Tupac Shakur

"I never saw such crazy musicians. Everybody in Frisco blew. It was the end of the continent; they didn't give a damn."
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road)

"A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her."
— Max Lucado

"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up."
— James Baldwin

"Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can."
— Nicholas Sparks (At First Sight)

"Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love."
— Charles M. Schulz

"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)"
— Various (Holy Bible: King James Version)

"You can't measure the mutual affection of two human beings by the number of words they exchange."
— Milan Kundera

"A single metaphor can give birth to love."
— Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

"If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever."
— Milan Kundera

"If you are humble nothing will touch you, neither praise nor disgrace, because you know what you are."
— Mother Teresa

"Blame it or praise it, there is no denying the wild horse in us."
— Virginia Woolf (Jacob's Room)

"May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us."
— Thérèse of Lisieux

"As a solid rock is not shaken by the wind, the wise are not moved by praise or blame."
— Siddhārtha Gautama

"To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. . . let us be above such transparent egotism.
"
— Will Durant

"A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, thought the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen."
— Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

"I no longer agree to treat myself with disrespect. Every time a self-critical thought comes to mind, I will forgive the Judge and follow this comment with words of praise, self-acceptance, and love."
— Miguel Ruiz

"ON LOVE
Then said Almitra, "Speak to us of Love." And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said: "When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you, believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself... He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God." And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

...If you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money."
— Virginia Woolf

"As a woman, I have no country. As a woman my country is the world. "
— Virginia Woolf

"The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages."
— Virginia Woolf

"Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy."
— Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

"I have lost friends, some by death...others by sheer inability to cross the street."
— Virginia Woolf

"She had the perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very, dangerous to live even one day."
— Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway)