"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
— Robert Frost

"Hello, I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. By true I mean false. It's all lies. But they're entertaining lies and in the end, isn't that the truth?

The answer is no."
— Leonard Nimoy

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Witch king: Fool. No man may can kill me!
Eowyn: (pulls off helmet) I am no man! (kills him)"
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Lord of the Rings - Return of the King)

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
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 (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat."
— Simone de Beauvoir

"I am incapable of conceiving infinity and yet I do not accept finity."
— Simone de Beauvoir

"On ne nait pas femme, on le devient."
— Simone de Beauvoir (Le Deuxième Sexe)

"(What an odd thing a diary is: the things you omit are more important than those you put in.)"
— Simone de Beauvoir (The Woman Destroyed)

"There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will, and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you.
"
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon)

"And so, perhaps, the truth winds somewhere between the road to Glastonbury, Isle of the Priests, and the road to Avalon, lost forever in the mists of the Summer Sea."
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon)

"If you own a machine, you are in turn owned by it, and spend your time serving it..."
— Marion Zimmer Bradley

""But this is my truth; I who am Morgaine tell you these things,Morgaine who was in later days called Morgan le Fay.""
— Marion Zimmer Bradley (The Mists of Avalon)

"The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination."
— Marion Zimmer Bradley

"'I am half sick of shadows' said the Lady of Shalott"
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (The Lady of Shalott)

"The purposeful destruction of information is the essence of intelligent work."
— Ray Kurzweil (The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence)

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces."
— Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones's Diary)

"It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree."
— Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones's Diary)

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
— Douglas Adams

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer"
— Douglas Adams

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"The problem with designing something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of a complete fool. "
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"Don't Panic"
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"The major problem- one of the major problems, for there are several- one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of whom manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.
To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"Let us never underestimate the power of a well-written letter."
— Karen Joy Fowler

"“What should we read next?” Bernadette asked. “Pride and Prejudice is my favorite.
“So let’s do that,” Sylvia said.
“Are you sure, dear?” Jocelyn asked,
“I am. It’s time. Anyway, Persuasion has the dead mother. I don’t want to subject Prudie to that now. The mother in Pride and Prejudice on the other hand…”
“Don’t give anything away,” Grigg said. “I haven’t read it yet.”
Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.
Grigg had never read Pride and Prejudice.
Grigg had read The Mysteries of Udolpho and God knows how much science fiction – there were books all over the cottage – but he’d never found the time or inclination to read Pride and Prejudice. We really didn’t know what to say."
— Karen Joy Fowler (The Jane Austen Book Club)

"If you can’t change the world with chocolate chip cookies, how can you change the world?"
— Pat Murphy

"Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men."
— Joseph Conrad

"The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity."
— Dorothy Parker