"You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love."
— Richelle Mead (Frostbite (Vampire Academy, #2))

"Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
— Robert Maynard Hutchins

"When I dream, I dream of him. For several nights now he’s come to me, waving from a distant shore as if he’s been waiting patiently for me to arrive. He doesn’t utter a word, but his smile says everything: I’ve missed you."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"People have a habit of inventing fictions they will believe wholeheartedly in order to ignore the truth they cannot accept."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

" 'There are times when I wish I could go back and change the course of my life. Make different choices...But the past cannot be changed, and we carry our choices with us, forward, into the unknown. We can only move on. Do you remember that I told you that at Spence?'"
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

" 'I'm sorry,' he says simply. 'People make mistakes, Gemma. We take the wrong action for the right reasons, and the right action for the wrong reasons.'"
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"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

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
— Mark Twain

"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
— Groucho Marx

"Whenever I see an old lady slip and fall on a wet sidewalk, my first instinct is to laugh. But then I think, what if I was an ant, and she fell on me. Then it wouldn't seem quite so funny."
— Jack Handey (Deep Thoughts)

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
— Kurt Vonnegut (Mother Night)

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."
— John Lennon

"People are often unreasonable and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway."
— Mother Teresa

"I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
"Okay," he said. He took a breath. "What would you do, if you could do anything?"
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. "This," I said. And then I kissed him."
— Sarah Dessen (The Truth About Forever)

"Edward. Edward. My life and his were twisted into a single strand. Cut one, and you cut both. If he were gone, I would not be able to live through that. If I were gone, he wouldn't live through it, either. And a world without Edward seemed completely pointless. Edward had to exist."
— Stephenie Meyer (Breaking Dawn)

"And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. I must remember to forgive myself. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time."
— Libba Bray

""I know because I read...Your mind is not a cage. It's a garden. And it requires cultivating.""
— Libba Bray

"You can never really know someone completely. That’s why it’s the most terrifying thing in the world, really—taking someone on faith, hoping they’ll take you on faith too. It’s such a precarious balance, It’s a wonder we do it at all. And yet..

"
— Libba Bray

"Shall I tell you a story? A new and terrible one? A ghost story? Are you ready? Shall I begin? Once upon a time there were four girls. One was pretty. One was clever. One charming, and one...one was mysterious. But they were all damaged, you see. Something not right about the lot of them. Bad blood. Big dreams. Oh, I left that part out. Sorry, that should have come before. They were all dreamers, these girls. One by one, night after night, the girls came together. And they sinned. Do you know what that sin was? No one? Pippa? Ann? Their sin was that they believed. Believed they could be different. Special. They believed they could change what they were--damaged, unloved. Cast-off things. They would be alive, adored, needed. Necessary. But it wasn't true. This is a ghost story remember? A tragedy. They were misled. Betrayed by their own stupid hopes. Things couldn't be different for them, because they weren't special after all. So life took them, led them, and they went along, you see? They faded before their own eyes, till they were nothing more than living ghosts, haunting each other with what could be. With what can't be. There, now. Isn't that the scariest story you've ever heard?"
— Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty)

"To those who will see, the world waits."
— Libba Bray

"What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?"
— Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)

"I run after her, not really giving chase. I’m running because I can, because I must.
Because I want to see how far I can go before I have to stop.
"
— Libba Bray

"I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right."
— Libba Bray

"We all do things we desperately wish we could undo. Those regrets just become part of who we are, along with everything else. To spend time trying to change that, well, it's like chasing clouds."
— Libba Bray

"It is funny how you do not miss affection until it is given, but once it is, it can never be enough; you would drown in it if possible."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"There are no safe choices. Only other choices. There are no safe choices

"
— Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty)

""Do you ever feel that way?"
"Lonely?"
I search for the words. "Restless. As if you haven't really met yourself yet. As is you'd passed yourself once in the fog, and your heart leapt--'Ah! There I Am! I've been missing that piece!' But it happens too fast, and then that part of you disappears into the fog again. And you spend the rest of your days looking for it"
He nods, and I think he's appeasing me. I feel stupid of having said it. It's sentimental and true, and I've revealed a part of myself I shouldn't have.
"Do you know what I think?" Kartik says at last.
"What?"
"Sometimes, I think you can glimpse it in another.'"
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"We sit and listen and are enthralled anew, for good stories, it seems, never lose their magic."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"Power changes everything till it is difficult to say who are the heroes and who the villians."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"But we can't go back. We can only go forward."
— Libba Bray

"But aren't many gardens beautiful because they are imperfect? ...Aren't the strange, new flowers that arise by mistake or misadventure as pleasing as the well-tended and planned?"
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"There is an ancient tribal proverb I once heard in India. It says that before we can see properly we must first shed our tears to clear the way. "
— Libba Bray

"Felicity ignores us. She walks out to them, an apparition in white and blue velvet, her head held high as they stare in awe at her, the goddess. I don't know yet what power feels like. But this is surely what it looks like, and I think I'm beginning to understand why those ancient women had to hide in caves. Why our parents and suitors want us to behave properly and predictably. It's not that they want to protect us; it's that they fear us."
— Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty)

"Eve didn't choose to eat the apple. She was tempted by the serpent."
"Yes," I argue, thoughts coming out half-formed. "But...she didn't have to take a bite. She chose to."
— Libba Bray

""But...you could have whatever you wished."
"Exactly," he says, nuzzling my neck.
"But," I say, "you could turn stones to rubies or ride in a fine gentleman's carriage."
Kartik puts his hands on either side of my face. "To each his own magic," he says and kisses me again.
"
— Libba Bray

"Do you think they missed him terribly when he fell? Did God cry over his lost angel, I wonder?"
— Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)

"We're all strangers connected by what we reveal, what we share, what we take away--our stories. I guess that's what I love about books--they are thin strands of humanity that tether us to one another for a small bit of time, that make us feel less alone or even more comfortable with our aloneness, if need be."
— Libba Bray

"And for a moment, I understand that I have friends on this lonely path; that sometimes your place is not something you find, but something you have when you need it."
— Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)

"No one asks how or what I am doing. They could not care less. We’re all looking glasses, we girls, existing only to reflect their images back to them as they’d like to be seen. Hollow vessels of girls to be rinsed of our own ambitions, wants, and opinions, just waiting to be filled with the cool, tepid water of gracious compliance.
A fissure forms in the vessel. I’m cracking open.
--Libba Bray"
— Libba Bray

""And that is how change happens. One gesture. One person. One moment at a time.""
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"...reminds us that greatness lies even in the smallest of moments, in the humblest of hearts, and we shall, each of us, be called to greatness. Whether we shall rise to meet it or let it slip away is the challenge put before us all. "
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"There are no safe choices, Miss Temple. Only other choices."
— Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty)

"In books, the truth makes everything good and fine. The good prevail. The wicked are punished. There is happiness. But it's not like that really, is it?"
"No," I say. "I suppose it only makes everything known.
"
— Libba Bray (Rebel Angels)

"I wish to live for myself. I should never want to be trapped."
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"I am no longer content to be the scared, obedient schoolgirl. Who are you, a stranger, to tell me what I can and cannot do?"
— Libba Bray