"I do like the world quite a lot."
— Shannon Hale (Book of a Thousand Days)

"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"There is no friend as loyal as a book."
— Ernest Hemingway

"I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"
— Ernest Hemingway

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

"I was under the stars, like a fish is under water."
— Shannon Hale

"I think the only way to get through this life is laughing hard and constantly, mostly at myself."
— Shannon Hale

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

"Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight."
— Gordon B. Hinckley

"Those who tell the stories rule society."
— Plato

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates' loot on Treasure Island and best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day of your life."
— Walt Disney Company

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
— Mark Twain

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
— Groucho Marx (The Essential Groucho)

"You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. "
— Ronald Reagan

""One can only tolerate the absolute idiocy of Man for so long before bringing out the bat.""
— Dean Hale

"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
— Oscar Wilde

"It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it."
— Oscar Wilde

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much."
— Oscar Wilde

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."
— Oscar Wilde

"If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all."
— Oscar Wilde

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."
— Oscar Wilde

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
— Oscar Wilde

"The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last."
— Oscar Wilde

"Razo hopped back up and adopted a posture that said he was completely unruffled, never had been, and in fact was ready to do something manly like lift boulders or swallow live worms."
— Shannon Hale (River Secrets)

". . . as long as there are movement and harmony, there are words."
— Shannon Hale

"It struck me as pretty ridiculous to be called Mr. Darcy and to stand on your own looking snooty at a party. It's like being called Heathcliff and insisting on spending the entire evening in the garden, shouting "Cathy" and banging your head against a tree."
— Helen Fielding (Bridget Jones's Diary)

"You're better than seven years of food. You're better than windows. You're even better than the sky."
— Shannon Hale (Book of a Thousand Days)

"Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck."
— Lemony Snicket

"Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness."
— Lemony Snicket

"If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats."
— Lemony Snicket (The Wide Window)

"Well-read people are less likely to be criminals."
— Lemony Snicket

"Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree on what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear."
— Lemony Snicket (The Carnivorous Carnival)

"Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make -- bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake -- if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you'd made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning."
— Lemony Snicket (The Austere Academy)

"Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or entertaining a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you. But if you refuse to entertain a notion - which is just a fancy way of saying that you refuse to think about a certain idea - you have to be much braver than someone who is merely facing some blood-thirsty animals, or some parents who are upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"A successful villain should have all these things at his or her villainous fingertips, or else give up villainy altogether and try to lead a life of decency, integrity, and kindness, which is much more challenging and noble, if not always quite as exciting."
— Lemony Snicket (The Grim Grotto)

"In most cases, the best strategy for a job interview is to be fairly honest, because the worst thing that can happen is that you won't get the job and will spend the rest of your life foraging for food in the wilderness and seeking shelter underneath a tree or the awning of a bowling alley that has gone out of business."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between two countries, so that the official can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly."
— Lemony Snicket

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"So what? All writers are lunatics!"
— Cornelia Funke (Inkspell)

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."
— Lemony Snicket (The Grim Grotto)

"I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms."
— Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)

"They didn't understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't so."
— Lemony Snicket (The Bad Beginning)

"Like a church bell, a coffin, and a vat of melted chocolate, a supply closet is rarely a comfortable place to hide."
— Lemony Snicket (The Blank Book)

"Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

"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

"To me, history ought to be a source of pleasure. It isn't just part of our civic responsibility. To me, it's an enlargement of the experience of being alive, just the way literature or art or music is."
— David McCullough

""Because it is morning, it is morning, and there is so much to see. "
— Libba Bray (The Sweet Far Thing)

"When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes."
— Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus