"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death and judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.
'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'"
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

""From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken: The crownless again shall be king.""
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. "
— Annie Dillard

"I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until at that moment I was lifted and struck."
— Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

"It is ironic that the one thing that all religions recognize as separating us from our creator--our very self-consciousness--is also the one thing that divides us from our fellow creatures. It was a bitter birthday present from evolution."
— Annie Dillard

"All the green in the planted world consists of these whole, rounded chloroplasts wending their ways in water. If you analyze a molecule of chlorophyll itself, what you get is one hundred thirty-six atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen arranged in an exact and complex relationship around a central ring. At the ring's center is a single atom of magnesium. Now: If you remove the atom of magnesium and in its exact place put an atom of iron, you get a molecule of hemoglobin. The iron atom combines with all the other atoms to make red blood, the streaming red dots in the goldfish's tail. [128]

"
— Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)

"When in doubt, look intelligent."
— Garrison Keillor

"Nothing you do for a child is ever wasted."
— Garrison Keillor

"You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories."
— Garrison Keillor

"“The most un-American thing you can say is, 'You can't say that.'”"
— Garrison Keillor

"That's the news from Lake Woebegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average."
— Garrison Keillor

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything."
— Mark Twain

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
— Mark Twain

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

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

"Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company."
— Mark Twain

"'Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read."
— Mark Twain

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it."
— Mark Twain

"Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it."
— Mark Twain

"There are three types of lies -- lies, damn lies, and statistics."
— Benjamin Disraeli

"Always do what is right. It will gratify half of mankind and astound the other."
— Mark Twain

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?"
— Mark Twain

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
— Mark Twain

"God created war so that Americans would learn geography."
— Mark Twain

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
— Mark Twain

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up."
— Mark Twain

"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
— Mark Twain

"The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter."
— Mark Twain

"Be the change you want to see in the world"
— Mahatma Ghandi

"An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
— M.K. Ghandi