"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions. "
— Augusten Burroughs (Magical Thinking: True Stories)

""I am prone to envy. It is one of my three default emotions, the others being greed and rage. I have also experienced compassion and generosity, but only fleetingly and usually while drunk, so I have little memory.""
— Augusten Burroughs

"Love sucks. Sometimes it feels good. Sometimes it's just another way to bleed. -- Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter"
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Blue Moon)

"There comes a point when you just love someone. Not because they're good, or bad, or anything really. You just love them. It doesn't mean you'll be together forever. It doesn't mean you won't hurt each other. It just mean you love them. Sometimes in spite of who they are, and sometimes because of who they are. And you know that they love you, sometimes because of who you are, and sometimes in spite of it. - Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter (Incubus Dreams)"
— Laurell K. Hamilton

"Maybe they know what I know, that the true way to a man's heart is six inches of metal between his ribs. Sometimes four inches will do the job, but to be really sure, I like to have six."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Narcissus in Chains)

"There comes a point when you either embrace who and what you are, or condemn yourself to be miserable all your days. Other people will try to make you miserable; don't help them by doing the job yourself."
— Laurell K. Hamilton

"...one of the good things about being a woman is that my level of testosterone poisoning is lower than most men's."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Obsidian Butterfly)

"Sometimes it's not the optimist you need, but another pessimist to walk beside you and know, absolutely know, that the sound in the dark is a monster, and it really is as bad as you think.

Did that sound hopeless? It didn't feel hopeless. It felt reassuring. It felt - real."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Blood Noir)

"I'd been willing to kill for the people I loved for a very long time; now I had to start living for them.
- Anita Blake"
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Danse Macabre)

"You can't save everybody. In fact, there are days when I think you can't save anyone. Each person has to save himself first, then you can move in and help. I have found this philosophy does not work during a gun battle, or a knife fight either. Outside of that it works just fine."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Guilty Pleasures)

"I talk to myself everyone once in a while. Give myself very good advice. Sometimes I even take it."
— Laurell K. Hamilton

"She should have remembered that people have given everything they own, everything they are, to be taken care of, and to have their pain gone. It's the lure of cults: the promise of a good family; it's what people think love is, but love isn't absence of pain, it's a hand to hold while you're going through it. "
— Laurell K. Hamilton (The Harlequin)

"Death didn't bother me much. Strong Christian and all that. Method of death did. Being eaten alive. One of my top three ways not to go out."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (The Laughing Corpse (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #2))

"He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Circus of the Damned (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #3))

"Surely being in love doesn't cause you to lose your sense of good taste. If I ever buy a gown with sequins on it, someone just shoot me. "
— Laurell K. Hamilton

"You always get weirdos like Edward who seem to attract women for some reason. If Edward wasn’t a fictional character and you met him in reality he is like one of those guys who would probably be an axe murderer or something."
— Stephenie Meyer (The Twilight Saga)

"People who claim they're evil are usually no worse than the rest of us. It's people who claim that they're good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"As long as people are going to call you lunatic anyway, why not get the benefit of it? It liberates you from convention."
— Gregory Maguire

"Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven. So you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it."
— Gregory Maguire

"And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the side stepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down,ever, ever. "
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"So he stalked her again. Love makes hunters of us all."
— Gregory Maguire (Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West)

"

'Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. And intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.'
"
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

"The pearls weren't really white, they were a warm oyster beige, with little knots in between so if they broke, you only lost one. I wished my life could be like that, knotted up so that even if something broke, the whole thing wouldn't come apart."
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

"Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without."
— Jodi Picoult (Perfect Match)

"As they passed the rows of houses they saw through the open doors that men were sweeping and dusting and washing dishes, while the women sat around in groups, gossiping and laughing.

'What has happened?' the Scarecrow asked a sad-looking man with a bushy beard, who wore an apron and was wheeling a baby carriage along the sidewalk.

'Why, we've had a revolution, your Majesty -- as you ought to know very well,' replied the man; 'and since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I'm glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.'

'Hm!' said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. 'If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?'

'I really do not know,' replied the man, with a deep sigh. 'Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.'"
— L. Frank Baum (The Marvellous Land of Oz)

"All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."
— John Lennon

"People who don't know me well enough might say I'm delusional and paranoid, but they're just out to get me."
— Lance Carbuncle (Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed)

"I enjoy my anger, it’s the only hobby I have."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (Cerulean Sins)

"Romance novels are birthday cake and life is often peanut butter and jelly. I think everyone should have lots of delicious romance novels lying around for those times when the peanut butter of life gets stuck to the roof of your mouth."
— Janet Evanovich

"I'm nobody
I'm a tramp, a bum, a hobo
I'm a boxcar and a jug of wine
And a straight razor ...if you get too close to me"
— Charles Manson

"You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."
— Jonathan Safran Foer

"When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible."
— Jonathan Safran Foer

"Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands."
— Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)

"Very occasionally, if you pay really close attention, life doesn't suck."
— Joss Whedon

"Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers. "
— Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)

"How do people, like, not curse? How is it possible? There are these gaps in speech where you just have to put a "fuck." I'll tell you who the most admirable people in the world are: newscasters. If that was me, I'd be like, "And the motherfuckers flew the fucking plane right into the Twin Towers." How could you not, if you're a human being? Maybe they're not so admirable. Maybe they're robot zombies."
— Nick Hornby (A Long Way Down)

"You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up."
— Pat Conroy (The Prince of Tides)

"There is a limit to the amount of misery and disarray you will put up with, for love, just as there is a limit to the amount of mess you can stand around a house. You can't know the limit beforehand, but you will know when you've reached it. I believe this."
— Alice Munro

""So what's with the 'hey' thing,", she asked, as Simon manuevered the car onto the FDR parkway, the highway that ran along the East River.
"What 'hey' thing?" he replied...
"The 'hey' thing that guys always do. Like when you saw Jace and Alec, you said 'hey,' and they said 'hey' back. What's wrong with 'hello'?"
She thought she saw a muscle twitch in his cheek. "'Hello' is girly," he informed her. "Real men are terse. Laconic."
"So the more manly you are, the less you say?"
"Right." Simon nodded..."That's why when major badasses greet each other in movies, they don't say anything. They just nod. The nod means, 'I am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass,' but they don't say anything because they're Wolverine and Magneto and it would mess up their vibe to explain."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Jace, from the backseat.
"Good," Clary said."
— Cassandra Clare