"But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."
— J.R.R. Tolkien

"The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."
— Dr. Seuss

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind."
— Dr. Seuss

"For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?"
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"Sister Walburga ate some of the sausage she was taking upriver for the anchorites, but you'd think from her distress that she was a Horseman of the Apocalypse and the Whore of Babylon rolled into one."
— Ariana Franklin (Mistress of the Art of Death)

"A poem is like a score for the human voice."
— Li-Young Lee

"Change isn't easy... changing the way you live means changing what you believe about life. That's hard... When we make our own misery, we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change because the misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable."
— Dean Koontz

"Please, don't torture me with cliches. If you're going to try to intimidate me, have the courtesy to go away for a while, acquire a better education, improve your vocabulary, and come back with some fresh metaphors."
— Dean Koontz

"Alliteration seems to offend people."
— Dean Koontz (Odd Thomas)

"There may be no more pleasing picture in the world than that of a child peering into a book - the past and the future entrancing each other."
— Roger Rosenblatt