"Be the change that you wish to see in the world."
— Mahatma Gandhi

"So many books, so little time."
— Frank Zappa

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

"Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why we call it 'The Present'."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Parenting is really just a matter of tracking, of hoping your kids do not get so far ahead you can no longer see their next moves. "
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it's not because they enjoy solitude. It's because they have tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them."
— Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper)

"Love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the wellbeing of one's companion."
— Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

"Poem by Howard A. Walter (Character)

I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
I would be pure, for there are those who care;
I would be strong, for there are those who suffer;
I would be brave, for there is much to dare.
I would be friend of all--- the foe, the friendless;
I would be giving, and forget the gift;
I would be humble, for I know my weakness;
I would look up, and laugh, and love, and lift."
— John C. Maxwell (Developing the Leader Within You)

"I am a book.

Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines
a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty
from shelves.
Steamy and anxious, abused and misused,
kissed and cried over,
smeared, yellowed, and torn,
loved, hated, scorned.

I am a book.

I am a book that remembers,
days when I stood proud in good company
When the children came, I leapt into their arms,
when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts,
when the men came, they held me like a lover,
and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs,
next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs,
my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling,
then forgotten, I crumbled,
dust to dust.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed,
born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot.
A family too close to see the blood on its hands,
too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge,
deaf to the screams of mortal wounding,
amused at decay and torment,
a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
I am a mystery.

I am intrigue, anxiety, fear,
I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black,
hiding from myself, from dark angels,
from the evil that lurks within
and the evil we cannot lurk without.

I am words of adventure,
of faraway places where no one knows my tongue,
of curious cultures in small, back alleys, mean streets,
the crumbling house in each of us.

I am primordial fear, the great unknown,
I am life everlasting.
I touch you and you shiver, I blow in your ear and you follow me,
down foggy lanes, into places you've never seen,
to see things no one should see,
to be someone you could only hope to be.

I ride the winds of imagination on a black-and-white horse,
to find the truth inside of me, to cure the ills inside of you,
to take one passenger at a time over that tall mountain,
across that lonely plain to a place you've never been
where the world stops for just one minute
and everything is right.

I am a mystery.

-Rides a Black and White Horse"
— Lise McClendon

"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends. To appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
— Bessie Anderson Stanley

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Love is a better master than duty."
— Albert Einstein

"This too shall pass..."
— Abraham Lincoln

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi (The Illuminated Rumi)

"When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you're not here, I can't go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. "
— Kahlil Gibrán

"It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Essential Kahlil Gibran)

"Love one another,
but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls."
— Kahlil Gibrán (Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran)

"One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit. "
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"إن صديقك هو كفاية حاجتك , و هو حقلك الذي تزرعه بالمحبة و تحصده بالشكر , هو مائدتك و موقدك , لأنك تأتي إليها جائعا , و تسعى وراءه مستدفئا ."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"The kingdom of heaven is within you; and whosoever shall know himself shall find it. "
— Egyptian Proverb

"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words."
— Donna Roberts

"I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one."
— Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square hole. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
— Apple Computer Inc.

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
— Laozi

"Nobody around here had ever seen a lady beekeeper till her. She liked to tell everybody that women made the best beekeepers, 'cause they have a special ability built into them to love creatures that sting. It comes from years of loving children and husbands."
— Sue Monk Kidd (The Secret Life of Bees)

"Saying 'I notice you're a nerd' is like saying, 'Hey, I notice that you'd rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you'd rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of Lindsay Lohan. Why is that?' In fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. Even 'lame' is kind of lame. Saying 'You're lame' is like saying 'You walk with a limp.' Yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he's done all right for himself."
— John Green

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment."
— Jane Austen

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

"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."
— Virginia Woolf

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

"A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power."
— George Meredith (Diana of the Crossways)

"She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression."
— C.S. Lewis (The Screwtape Letters)

"When children, frightened of the wolf at the window, were asked what did it want to do, the little boy replied, 'Gobble me up.' The little girl said, 'Let's ask it.' "
— Darrian Leader

"Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy"
— Alexandre Dumas

"Until you're ready to look foolish, you'll never have the possibility of being great.

"
— Cher

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
— Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)