"Do you remember me telling you we are practicing non-verbal spells, Potter?"
"Yes," said Harry stiffly.
"Yes, sir."
"There's no need to call me "sir" Professor."
The words had escaped him before he knew what he was saying."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince)

"Ah" said Dumbledore gently, "Yes I thought we might hit that little snag!"
"Snag?" said Fudge, his voice still vibrating with joy. "I see no snag, Dumbledore!"
"Well," said Dumbledore apologetically, "I'm afraid I do."
"Oh, really?"
"Well it's just that you seem to be labouring under the delusion that I am going to -- come quietly. I am afraid I am not going to come quietly at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course -- but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"'Is it true that you shouted at Professor Umbridge?'
'"Yes.'
'You called her a liar?'
'Yes.'
'You told her He Who Must Not Be Named is back?'
'Yes.'
'Have a biscuit, Potter.'"
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced of mammals – although a case could be made for the dolphins – because they seldom grow up. Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world, flexibility of response, and playfulness are common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature."
— Tom Robbins (Still Life with Woodpecker)

"You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it."
— Wendell Berry

"Every act of rebellion expresses a nostalgia for innocence and an appeal to the essence of being."
— Albert Camus (The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt)

""It's our goddamed city! It's our goddamed country. No terrorist can take it from us for so long as we're free. Once we're not free, the terrorists win! Take it back! You're young enough and stupid enough not to know that you can't possibly win, so you're the only ones who can lead us to victory! Take it back!" ~Trudy Doo, lead singer of the Speedwhores (from the book Little Brother)"
— Cory Doctorow

"Without Revolutionary theory, there can be no Revolutionary Movement."
— Vladimir Lenin

"The greatest purveyor of violence in the world : My own Government, I can not be Silent."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n."
— John Milton (Paradise Lost)

"I used rebellion as a way to hide out. We use criticism as a fake participation."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Choke)

"Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Nell did not imagine that Constable Moore wanted to get into a detailed discussion of recent events, so she changed the subject. "I think I have finally worked out what you were trying to tell me, years ago, about being intelligent," she said.

The Constable brightened all at once. "Pleased to hear it."

"The Vickys have an elaborate code of morals and conduct. It grew out of the moral squalor of an earlier generation, just as the original Victorians were preceded by the Georgians and the Regency. The old guard believe in that code because they came to it the hard way. They raise their children to believe in that code– but their children believe it for entirely different reasons."

"They believe it," the Constable said, "because they have been indoctrinated to believe it."

"Yes. Some of them never challenge it– they grow up to be smallminded people, who can tell you what they believe but not why they believe it. Others become disillusioned by the hypocrisy of the society and rebel– as did Elizabeth Finkle-McGraw."

"Which path do you intend to take, Nell?" said the Constable, sounding very interested. "Conformity or rebellion?"

"Neither one. Both ways are simple-minded– they are only for people who cannot cope with contradiction and ambiguity." "
— Neal Stephenson (The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer)

"A good Lycee is one that teaches patricide."
— Street Slogan Paris May 1968 - Epigraph to the novel SKATERS

"I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere."
— Thomas Jefferson

"Qu'on le sache bien, une bonne fois pour toutes: je ne veux pas me civiliser."
— Arthur Cravan

"My Splendid Concubine, historical fiction by Lloyd Lofthouse
“I was struck by the beauty of the cover, and I certainly was not disappointed by the book’s contents. A fascinating illumination of nineteenth-century Chinese culture and the complex Englishman Robert Hart, the father of China’s modernization. Hart’s struggles adapting to Chinese culture, always feeling the pull and force of his Victorian British background, are compelling. His relationships with his concubine and his concubine’s sister are poignant—the novel is as much a study of the complexities of love as it is anything else. A powerful novel whose beauty exceeds that of the book’s cover.” Writer’s Digest judge, 2008

"
— Writer's Digest judge, 2008

"So exiled have even basic questions of freedom become from the political vocabulary that they sound musty and ridiculous, and vulnerable to the ultimate badge of shame-'That's so 60's!'-the entire decade having been mocked so effectively that social protest seems outlandish and 'so last century,' just another style excess like love beads and Nehru jackets. No, rebellion won't pose a problem for this social order."
— Laura Kipnis (Against Love: A Polemic)