"The ancients believed in Fate because they recognised how hard it is for anyone to change anything. The pull of past and future is so strong that the present is crushed by it. We lie helpless in the force of patterns inherited and patterns re-enacted by our own behaviour. The burden is intolerable."
— Jeannette Winterson

"As my mother once said, 'The boys throw stones at the frog in jest. But the frogs die in earnest.""
— Joanna Russ (The Female Man)

"Moments into minutes. Minutes into hours. Hours into days. Days into years. Years into possibility. This will linger.""
— The Realm Of Possibility By David Levithan

"...with the most infinite tenderness I have ever known in my life, he put his arms around me, gently, gently, and I embraced him around the neck, and we touched..."
— Katherine Anne Porter

"Passion such as hers is all consent, asking little in return. I had merely to enter a room where she was to see her face take on that peaceful expression of one who is resting in bed. If I touched her, I had the impression that all the blood in her veins was turning to honey."
— Marguerite Yourcenar

"Her lips on his could tell him better than all her stumbling words."
— Margaret Mitchell

"The city atmosphere certainly has improved her. Some way she doesn't seem like the same woman."
— Kate Chopin (The Awakening)

"Remember these words when I am dead. First be sure you're right, then go ahead."
— David Crockett

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
— Janis Joplin

"I can tell you I love you as many times as you can stand to hear it, but all it does is remind us that love is not enough. Not even close."
— Mark Andrus

"We will all wake up semi-angels,
If we wake at all."
— Rod McKuen

"What should our shared values be? Everybody counts. Everybody deserves a chance. Everybody's got a responsibility to fulfill. We do better when we work togerher. Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more."
— William Jefferson Clinton

"Cease, stranger, cease those witching notes,
The art of syren choirs;
Hush the seductive voice that floats
Across the trembling wires.

Music's ethereal power was given
Not to dissolve our clay,
But draw Promethean beams from heaven
To purge the dross away."
— John Henry Newman

"I Can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow."
— Margaret Mitchell (Gone With The Wind)

"As young people we want something to slow us down and keep us trapped in one place long enough to look below the surface of the world. That disaster is a car crash or a war. To make us sit still. It can be getting cancer or getting pregnant. The important part is how it seems to catch us by surprise. That disaster stops us from living the life we'd planned as children - a life of constant dashing around."
— Chuck Palahniuk

"You need to find a way to live your life, that it doesn't make a mockery of your values."
— Bill Ayers

"Sometimes my day is crammed full of people and talk and yet I have the feeling of living in utter peace and quiet. And the tree outside my window, in the evenings, is a greater experience than all those people put together."
— Etty Hillesum

"I never dreamed that she meant lights. Sparkling. Shimmering. Waves of light. We could see them from the front of the cafe. Besides the few customers, everyone who lived on the street was gathered inside. And I mean everyone, even strange little Esther. She'd squeezed herself into the darkest corner of the room, sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her bent knees. But even her face was in awe. Silvers. Pearls. Iridescent pinks. They now sprayed out into the sunless room and hit the ceiling. The walls. The floor. Glowing copper. Gilded orange. And all kinds or gold. Sequins of light that swirled and spun through the air. Cascades of light flowing in, breaking up, and rolling like fluid diamonds over the worn tile. Emerald. Turquoise. Sapphire. It went on for hours. I looked over there and there were tears streaming down Gabe's wrinkled face: God bless you, Eve. And finally only the muted glow of a cool aquamarine. Then we heard the baby's first thin cry- and the place went wild."
— Gloria Naylor (Bailey's Cafe)

"Her least favorite thing: VOLUNTARY IGNORANCE"
— Whoopi Goldberg

"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence."
— Hal Borland

"There is no way to peace; peace is the way."
— Emily Greene Balch

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. "
— Philip K. Dick

"If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world."
— Emmet Fox

"Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.""
— Jim Morrison

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally"
— Abraham Lincoln

"Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free."
— Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes: A Novel)

"We love our lovin'....but not like we love our freedom."
— Joni Mitchell

"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."
— F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)

"If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next -- if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions -- you'd be doomed. You'd be ruined as God. You'd be a stone. You'd never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning.
You'd never dare to."
— Margaret Atwood (Der blinde Mörder / The Blind Assassin)

"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music."
— Albert Einstein

"Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."
— Leonard Bernstein

"We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself."
— Hazrat Inayat Khan

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"Peace begins with a smile.."
— Mother Teresa

"When written in Chinese, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters. One represents danger, the other opportunity."
— John F. Kennedy

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."
— Maya Angelou

"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy."
— Max Ehrmann (Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life)

"Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection."
— Joseph R. Cooke

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose."
— Lyndon B. Johnson

"If you can't you must, and if you must you can.

"
— Anthony Robbins

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."
— Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography or The Story of My Experiments with Truth)

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. "
— Mahatma Gandhi

"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum. "
— Frances Willard

"Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!"
— Maya Angelou

"Don't wake up one day wishing you'd tried."
— Edwin McCain

"If you reach for the stars, all you'll get are the stars.....if you reach for the heavens, you get the stars thrown in."
— Mary Poppins

"...And sometime when I wasn't looking, I got a new life"
— Linda Della Donna