"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader."
— Robert Frost

"I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower's stem."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"When the day shall come that we do part," he said softly, and turned to look at me, "if my last words are not 'I love you'-ye'll ken it was because I didna have time."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you."
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"Lying on the floor, with the carved panels of the ceiling flickering dimly above, I found myself thinking that I had always heretofore assumed that the tendency of eigh­teenth-century ladies to swoon was due to tight stays; now I rather thought it might be due to the idiocy of eighteenth-century men. "
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I willna let ye go"
— Diana Gabaldon (Dragonfly in Amber)

"I shook so that it was some time before I realized that he was shaking too, and for the same reason. I don't know how long we sat there on the dusty floor, crying in each others arms with the longing of twenty years spilling down our faces."
— Diana Gabaldon (Voyager)

""There are things that I canna tell you, at least not yet. And I'll ask nothing of ye that ye canna give me. But what I would ask of ye---when you do tell me something, let it be the truth. And I'll promise ye the same. We have nothing now between us, save---respect, perhaps. And I think that respect has maybe room for secrets, but not for lies. Do ye agree?" "
— Diana Gabaldon (Outlander)

"Men go where they will, they do as they must; it is not a woman's part to bid them to stay, nor yet to reproach them for being what they are-or for not coming back."
— Diana Gabaldon (The Fiery Cross)

"Our sex is fierce. We will both be bruised.

"I want it to always be like this," I tell him.

"Try holding onto that thought."

"I do not need to try. I will never feel differently."

His laughter is as dark and cold as the place of which I dream, "One day you will wonder if it's possible to hate me more."

"
— Karen Marie Moning (Dreamfever)

"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)

"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)

"I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way."
— Robert Frost

"Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door;
Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore
Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn
Disturbs the eternal sleep,
But in the stillness far withdrawn
Our dreamless rest for evermore we keep."
— Robert Louis Stevenson

"Three Words of Strength

There are three lessons I would write-
Three words, as with a burning pen,
In tracings of eternal light,
Upon the heart of men.

Have hope! though clouds environ round,
And gladness hides her face in scorn,
Put thou the shadow from thy brow,
No night but hath its morn.

Have faith! where're thy bark is driven-
The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth-
Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven,
The inhabitants of earth.

Have love! not love alone for one,
But man as man thy brother call,
And scatter like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all.

Thus grave these lessons on thy soul,
Hope, faith, and love; and thou shalt find
Strength when life's surges rudest roll,
Light when thou else wert blind."
— Friedrich von Schiller

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

"So many books, so little time."
— Frank Zappa

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough"
— Mae West

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

"Anyone who thinks sitting in church can make you a Christian must also think that sitting in a garage can make you a car."
— Garrison Keillor

"I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally. "
— W.C. Fields

"Inconceivable!"
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
— William Goldman (The Princess Bride)

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."
— Jane Austen

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"
— Henry Ward Beecher

"Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a blank piece of paper until your forehead bleeds."
— Douglas Adams

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
— Mae West

"Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident."
— Mark Twain

"Is that a bulletproof vest? See, now that's so insulting. That's like saying I'm not smart enough to shoot you in the head."
Eddie DeChooch"
— Janet Evanovich (Seven Up)

"Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind."
— Cervantes (Don Quixote)

"Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone."
— Dorothy Parker

"To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman's function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute."
— G.K. Chesterton

"'This is motherhood for you,' said my own mother. 'Going through life with your heart outside your body.'"
— Jennifer Weiner

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
— Pablo Picasso

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."
— Mother Teresa

"A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires."
— Paulo Coelho

"My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading."
— Anne Fadiman (Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader)

"A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise the heart of a child."
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
— Thomas Paine

"There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"We fell in love, despite our differences, and once we did, something rare and beautiful was created. For me, love like that has only happened once, and that's why every minute we spent together has been seared in my memory. I'll never forget a single moment of it."
— Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)

"You're only given a spark of madness. You musn't lose it."
— Robin P. Williams

"I could probably have made the head shot from the railing, but with an unfamiliar gun, it was too risky. I didn't want to accidentally shoot the woman in the head. Killing the hostage is always frowned upon."
— Laurell K. Hamilton (The Killing Dance)

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

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
— William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear."
— William Shakespeare

"sometimes the heart sees whats invisble to the eye"
— Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be better."
— Alfred Lord Tennyson

"The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain."
— George Gordon Byron

"In secret we met -
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee? -
With silence and tears"
— George Gordon Byron

"But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions think."
— George Gordon Byron