"Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual."
— Terry Pratchett (Jingo)

"I never exactly made a book. It's rather like taking dictation. I was given things to say. "
— C.S. Lewis

"You can make anything by writing."
— C.S. Lewis

"Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?"
— John Keats

"The gentle maid, whose hapless tale,
these melancholy pages speak;
say, gracious lady, shall she fail
To draw the tear a down from thy cheek?"
— Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story)

"...all that is carried along
by the stream's silvery cascade,
rhythmically falling from the mountain,
carried by its own current--
carried where?"
— Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyła)

"I fix mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye..."
— John Donne

"For grammar it [poetry] might have, but it needs it not; being so easy in itself, and so void of those cumbersome differences of cases, genders, moods, and tenses, which, I think, was a piece of the Tower of Babylon's curse, that a man shoult be put to school to learn his mother-tongue."
— Philip Sidney (Defence of Poesie, Astrophil and Stella, and Other Writings)

"Anger, the Stoics said, was a short madness."
— Philip Sidney (Defence of Poesie, Astrophil and Stella, and Other Writings)

"...scoffing cometh not of wisdom..."
— Philip Sidney (Defence of Poesie, Astrophil and Stella, and Other Writings)

"Harvest moon:
around the pond I wander
and the night is gone."
— Basho

"Faster... Faster... it'll stop all right when the time comes..."
— Evelyn Waugh

"...that kernel of gaiety that never breaks."
— Evelyn Waugh (Vile Bodies)

"Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile,
Lift up before us when they pass,
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives,
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to bareness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness,
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, go
The ravens of unresting thought;
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind,
And shake their ragged wings: alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind:
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.
"
— William Butler Yeats

"But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,--
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun."
— William Shakespeare

"Sing “Hey to you –good day to you”-
Sing “Bah to you –ha! Ha! To you”-
Sing “Booh to you –pooh, pooh to you.'"
— W.S. Gilbert

"The world will never starve for want of wonders, but for want of wonder."
— G.K. Chesterton

"He heard the opening being shut like a trap, and his heart almost stopped beating, for this was the Fairies’ home…"
— Herminie Templeton Kavanagh

"A little nonsense now and then,
Is cherished by the wisest men."
— John August (3 Engel für Charlie)

"Hullo… the wall is a looking-glass!"
— Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)

"Is he mad?"
— Herman Melville (Moby-Dick, or The Whale)

"Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese--toasted mostly."
— Robert Louis Stevenson

"I thought unicorns were more . . . Fluffy."
— Terry Pratchett (Lords and Ladies)

"I cannot live without books."
— Thomas Jefferson

"“It may be a dangerous and confusing job.
But it’s mine to do…”
"
— Michael Hoeye (Time Stops for No Mouse)

""I am Oz, the Great and Terrible,"
spoke the Beast, in a voice that was one great roar.
"Who are you, and why do you seek me?'"
— L. Frank Baum (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)

"On the bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily."
— William Shakespeare

"Night, the mother of fear and mystery,
was coming upon me."
— H.G. Wells

"Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
'Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain't been there before."
— Shel Silverstein

"…a lady of what is commonly called an uncertain temper
--a phrase which being interpreted signifies a temper tolerably certain to make
everybody more or less uncomfortable."
— Charles Dickens (Barnaby Rudge)

"He was dressed as if everything he wore had come from different stores or from a rummage sale, except that the crease in his trousers was sharp and his shoes were shined."
— Beverly Cleary (Ramona Quimby, Age 8)

"His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof."
— J.K. Rowling

"Consider anything, only don’t cry!"
— Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking-Glass)

"No more twist!"
— Beatrix Potter (The Tailor of Gloucester)

"…To many-towered Camelot…"
— Tennyson

"Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant--
No! No! I mean an elephone,
Who tired to use the telephone."
— Laura Elizabeth Richards

"Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing--
turn your toes out when you walk---
And remember who you are!"
— Lewis Carroll (Through The Looking Glass)

"A man’s attire,
and excessive laughter…
shew what he is."
— Various (Holy Bible)

"Now that I’ve seen what Mennus is capable of,
I’m even more worried about her.
He’s a genuine nitcase."
— Michael Hoeye (Time Stops for No Mouse)

"How did you get here?" Harry asked…
"Flew," said Hagrid.
"Flew?"
— J.K. Rowling

"Elementary, my dear Watson.
-Sherlock Holmes"
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"…and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder.
For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden,
a little old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face,
who seemed to be as much surprised as they were."
— L. Frank Baum (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz)

"Curiouser and curiouser."
— Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass)

"...the girl with the tip-tilted nose, the forget-me-not eyes, the rose red cheeks
and the lily-white neck and shoulders who gave the explanation in a
trembling voice: “It’s the ghost!'"
— Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)

"We all have our moments of brilliance and glory, and this was mine."
— Roald Dahl (Boy: Tales of Childhood)

"He -it- was a specter! I stepped back, stunned. "
— Gail Carson Levine (The Two Princesses of Bamarre)

""Tonight I gave you my soul, and I am dead." "
— Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera)

"Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it."
— Stephen Vizinczey

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser men so full of doubts."
— Bertrand Russell

"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
— Bertrand Russell