"I'd shut the whole world down just to tell you"
— Rob Sheffield (Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time)

""I am losing my mind," she says, looks down for a moment, then back up at the camera. "But the essence of a person is their heart, isn't it?""
— Lauren Kessler, "Dancing with Rose"

"It is our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone)

"Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

"Wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"Percy wouldn't notice a joke if it danced naked in front of him wearing one of
Dobby's hats."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

"Ron," said Hermione in a dignified voice, "you are the most insensitive wart I have ever had the misfortune to meet."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"My mother began to go crazy. Not in a 'Let's paint the kitchen red!' sort of way. But crazy in a 'gas oven, toothpaste sandwhich, I am God' sort of way."
— Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors: A Memoir)

"Life was a swarm of accidents waiting in the treetops, descending upon any living thing that passed, ready to eat them alive. You swam in a river of chance and coincidence. You clung to the happiest accidents- the rest you let float by."
— David Wroblewski (The Story of Edgar Sawtelle)

"You need a reason to be sad. You don't need a reason to be happy."
— Louis Sachar (Sideways Stories from Wayside School)

"Read like a wolf eats."
— Gary Paulsen

"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted."
— Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)

"The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something."
— Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)

"My colleague told me: "It took a long time, but I finally figured it out. When it comes to men who are romantically interested in you, it's really simple. Just ignore everything they say and only pay attention to what they do.""
— Randy Pausch

"You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better. "
— Randy Pausch

"Its important to have specific dreams. Dream Big. Dream without fear."
— Randy Pausch

"When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him."
— Randy Pausch

"Look, I'm going to find a way to be happy, and I'd really love to be happy with you, but if I can't be happy with you, then I'll find a way to be happy without you."
— Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)

"Follow your passions, believe in karma, and you won't have to chase your dreams, they will come to you."
— Randy Pausch

"You can always change you plan, but only if you have one."
— Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture)

"He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past."
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"To him she seemed so beautiful, so seductive, so different from ordinary people, that he could not understand why no one was as disturbed as he by the clicking of her heels on the paving stones, why no one else's heart was wild with the breeze stirred by the sighs of her veils, why everyone did not go mad with the movements of her braid, the flight of her hands, the gold of her laughter. He had not missed a single one of her gestures, not one of the indications of her character, but he did not dare approach her for fear of destroying the spell."
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"... wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good."
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"Be calm. God awaits you at the door. "
— Gabriel García Márquez (Love in the Time of Cholera)

"Life, with it's rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. - Mrs. Whatsit"
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"Believing takes practice."
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"A straight line is not the shortest distance between two points."
— Madeleine L'Engle (A Wrinkle in Time)

"Drifting off to sleep, I thought about her. How nobody is perfect. How you just have to close your eyes and breathe out and let the puzzle of the human heart be what it is."
— Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)

"...Don't feel sorry for me. I'm glad I had a second chance in life like you said to be smart because I learned a lot of things that I never knew were in this world, and I'm grateful I saw it even for a little bit."
— Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)

""Thank God for books and music and things I can think about."

--Charlie Gordan"
— Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)

"Lunatics are similar to designated hitters. Often an entire family is crazy, but since an entire family can't go into the hospital, one person is designated as crazy and goes inside. Then, depending on how the rest of the family is feeling that person is kept inside or snatched out, to prove something about the family's mental health."
— Susanna Kaysen (Girl, Interrupted (Faber and Faber Screenplays) Screenplay based on the book)

"Scar tissue has no character. It's not like skin. It doesn't show age or illness or pallor or tan. It has no pores, no hair, no wrinkles. It's like a slip cover. It shields and disguises what's beneath. That's why we grow it; we have something to hide. "
— Susanna Kaysen (Girl, Interrupted)

"With wild eyes that had seen freedom."
— Susanna Kaysen (Girl, Interrupted)

"“Was I ever crazy? Maybe. Or maybe life is… Crazy isn’t being broken or swallowing a dark secret. It’s you or me amplified. If you ever told a lie and enjoyed it. If you ever wished you could be a child forever.”"
— Girl Interrupted

"Animal lovers are a special breed of humans, generous of spirit, full of empathy, perhaps a little prone to sentimentality, and with hearts as big as a cloudless sky"
— John Grogan (Marley & Me Illustrated Edition: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog)

"A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A water-logged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn't care if
you are rich or poor,educated or illiterate, clever or
dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. "
— John Grogan (Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog)

"It's just the most amazing thing to love a dog, isn't it? It makes our relationships with people seem as boring as a bowl of oatmeal."
— John Grogan (Marley & Me: Love and Life with the World's Worst Dog)

""I don't let anyone touch me," I finally said.
"Why not?"
Why not? Because I was tired of men. Hanging in doorways, standing too close, their smell of beer or fifteen-year-old whiskey. Men who didn't come to the emergency room with you, men who left on Christmas Eve. Men who slammed the security gates, who made you love them then changed their minds. Forests of boys, their ragged shrubs full of eyes following you, grabbing your breasts, waving their money, eyes already knocking you down, taking what they felt was theirs. (...) It was a play and I knew how it ended, I didn't want to audition for any of the roles. It was no game, no casual thrill. It was three-bullet Russian roulette. "
— Janet Fitch (White Oleander)

"I wonder why we always deny love. I remember in middle school, if you were accused of the crime of loving, you screamed denials constantly and stopped ever even looking at the boy you were accused of liking. The boys could destroy each other by yodeling, "An-drew lo-oves Jen-nie," and both Andrew and Jennie would flinch and blush. Love is this great thing that most songs and books and poems and lives are all about. So the minute we actually think there might be love around, we start laughing and pretending and hiding from it."
— Caroline B. Cooney (Girl Who Invented Romance)

"Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere."
— Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon)

"'Busy' is another word for 'asshole'. 'Asshole' is another word for the guy you're dating."
— Greg Behrendt (He's Just Not That Into You (The Newly Expanded Edition): The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys)

"Cheaters never prosper. (Because they suck.) "
— Greg Behrendt

"All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time."
— Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"Holding anger is a poison...It eats you from inside...We think that by hating someone we hurt them...But hatred is a curved blade...and the harm we do to others...we also do to ourselves."
— Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

"The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live."
— Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson)

"I like myself better when I'm with you."
— Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson)

"When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth."
— Mitch Albom (For One More Day)

"Little rabbits have big ears."
— V.C. Andrews (Fallen Hearts)

"Quite often somebody will say, 'What year do your books take place?' and the only answer I can give is, in childhood."
— Beverly Cleary