"When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, “It happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are under your nose."
— Hermann Hesse (Siddhartha)

"Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."
— Dorothy Allison

"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."
— Maya Angelou

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him."
— Maya Angelou

"When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began."
— Rita Mae Brown

"the children came to a perfume shop. In the show window was a large jar of freckle salve, and beside the jar was a sign, which read: DO YOU SUFFER FROM FRECKLES?

“What does the sign say?” ask Pippi. She couldn’t read very well because she didn’t want to go to school as other children did.
“It says, ‘Do you suffer from freckles?’” said Annika.
“Does it indeed?” said Pippi thoughtfully. “Well, a civil question deserves a civil answer. Let’s go in.”

She opened the door and entered the shop, closely followed by Tommy and Annika. An elderly lady stood back of the counter. Pippi went right up to her. “No!” she said decidedly.

“What is it you want?” asked the lady.
“No,” said Pippi once more.
“I don’t understand what you mean,” said the lady.
“No, I don’t suffer from freckles,” said Pippi.

Then the lady understood, but she took one look at Pippi and burst out, “But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!”

“I know it,” said Pippi, “but I don’t suffer from them. I love them. Good morning.”

She turned to leave, but when she got to the door she looked back and cried, “But if you should happen to get in any salve that gives people more freckles, then you can send me seven or eight jars.”"
— Astrid Lindgren

"No Fridolf, bother all this learning. I can't study anymore because I must climb the mast to see what kind of weather we're going to have tomorrow."
— Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking)

"I think the best evenings are when we have messages, things that make us think, but we can also laugh and enjoy each other's company. "
— Jane Goodall

"Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.
"
— Simone de Beauvoir

"Interviewer: 'So Frank, you have long hair. Does that make you a woman?'
Frank Zappa: 'You have a wooden leg. Does that make you a table?'"
— Frank Zappa

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