"Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether to dine out rather than in, or which one gets massaged that evening with oil of calendula; there are seasons in the life of a couple that function, I think, a little like a night watch. One stands guard, often for a long time, providing the serenity in which the other can work at something. Usually that something is sinewy and full of spines. One goes inside the dark place while the other one stays outside, holding up the moon."
— Marlena De Blasi (A Thousand Days in Venice)

"“There is no such thing as a soulmate…and who would want there to be? I don’t want half of a shared soul. I want my own damn soul.”
Ely in Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
"
— Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

"If more of us valued food and cheer above hoarded gold, it would be a much merrier world."
— J.R.R. Tolkien

""I could NEVER be your girl."

-Buffy to Spike, Season 6, Dead Things"
— Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

"Anne Lamott’s priest friend Tom, how to get through:
"Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe," he said. "Right foot, left foot, right foot, breathe."
Salon April 25, 2003"
— Anne Lamott

"Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet.
quoting her pastor in Salon, April 25, 2003"
— Anne Lamott

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?"
— Mary Oliver (New and Selected Poems)

"Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired produces such and ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity... we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance."
— A.E. Newton

"A well-chosen book saves you from everything, including yourself."
— Daniel Pennac (The Rights of the Reader)

"He was a big talker, someone who liked words for words' sake, the sound of them, the way you can pile them up in your mouth and make a poem if you speill them out the right way.
p92"
— Frances O'Roark Dowell (Shooting the Moon)

"the calling of the teacher. There is no craft more privileged. To awaken in another human being powers, dreams beyond one’s own; to induce in others a love for that which one loves; to make of one’s inward present their future; that is a threefold adventure like no other."
— George Steiner (Lessons of the Masters)

"Some people are born empty. All manner of good deeds and patience and loving kindness can't even begin to fill them up."
— Marlena De Blasi (That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story)

"Gale is mine. I am his. Anything else is unthinkable."
— Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire)