"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
— Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)

"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)

"Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead."
— Louisa May Alcott

"A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool."
— William Shakespeare (As You Like It)

"If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."
— William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."
— William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes. (Act 4, Scene 1)"
— William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

"Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?"
— William Shakespeare

"All children mythologise their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth: it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story. "
— Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)

"One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else."
— Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
— Mark Twain

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
— Mark Twain

"Books are my friends, my companions. They make me laugh and cry and find meaning in life. "
— Christopher Paolini (Eragon)

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

"Like bear..."
— Christopher Moore

"Don't be ridiculous, Charlie, people love the parents who beat their kids in department stores. It's the ones who just let their kids wreak havoc that everybody hates."
— Christopher Moore (A Dirty Job)

"He wanted her to experience all the glorius chees of life."
— Christopher Moore

"Keep in mind that many people have died for their beliefs; it's actually quite common. The real courage is in living and suffering for what you believe."
— Christopher Paolini (Eragon)

"Of course you like him; everyone enjoys flattery."
— Christopher Paolini

"...Because you can't argue with all the fools in the world. It's easier to let them have their way, then trick them when they're not paying attention."
— Christopher Paolini (Eragon)

"My head is throbbing. I need coffee. Leaving the marbled papers in a state of controlled chaos, I walk through the office and past the page's desk in the Reading Room. I am halted by Isabelle's voice saying, "Perhaps Mr. DeTamble can help you," by which she means "Henry, you weasel, where are you slinking off to?" and this astoundingly beautiful amber-haired tall slim girl turns around and looks at me as through I am her personal Jesus. My stomach lurches. Obviously she knows me, and I don't know her. Lord only knows what I've said, done, or promised to this luminous creature, so I am forced to say in my best librarianese, "Is there something I can help you with?" The girl sort of breathes "Henry!" in this very evocative way that convinces me that at some point in time we have a really amazing thing together. This makes it worse that I don't know anything about her, not even her name. I say "Have we met?" and Isabelle givs me a look that says You asshole. But the girl says, "I'm Claire Abshire. I knew you when I was a little girl," and invites me out to dinner. I accept, stunned."
— Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)

"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)

"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
— Robert A. Heinlein

"Beethoven tells you what it's like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe."
— Douglas Adams

"for Harry Potter I have all the time in the world"
— Philippa Gregory