"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. "
— Plato

"Wherever you will go,
I will let you down,
But this lullaby goes on. "
— Sarah Dessen (Someone Like You)

"Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when it's morning again, they'll wash away
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you."
— Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games)

"We did it, we bashed them wee Potter's the one, and Voldy's gone moldy, so now let's have fun!"
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

"I've measured out my life in coffee spoons."
— T.S. Eliot

"Every day is getting worse
Do the same things and they hurt
I don't know if I should cry
All I know is that I'm tryin'
I wanna believe in you, I wanna beleive in you
So why can't you be, be good to me...."
— Grace Norwich (Ashley Tisdale: Life Is Sweet!: An Unauthorized Biography)

"See? See what you can do? Never mind you can’t tell one letter from another, never mind you born a slave, never mind you lose your name, never mind your daddy dead, never mind nothing. Here, this here, is what a man can do if he puts his mind to it and his back in it. Stop sniveling,’ [the land] said. ‘Stop picking around the edges of the world. Take advantage, and if you can’t take advantage, take disadvantage. We live here. On this planet, in this nation, in this county right here. Nowhere else! We got a home in this rock, don’t you see! Nobody starving in my home; nobody crying in my home, and if I got a home you got one too! Grab it. Grab this land! Take it, hold it, my brothers, make it, my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, turn it, twist it, beat it, kick it, kiss it, whip it, stomp it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on – can you hear me? Pass it on!"
— Toni Morrison (Song of Solomon)

"The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties."
— Neil Gaiman (Anansi Boys)

"Sparrows and cats will live in my shoe,
Sooner than I will live with you.
Fish will come walking out of the sea,
Sooner than you will come back to me."
— Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn)

"‘How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked.

‘Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’

The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion."
— Toni Morrison

"A successful song comes to sing itself inside the listener. It is cellular and seismic, a wave coalescing in the mind and in the flesh. There is a message outside and a message inside, and those messages are the same, like the pat and thud of two heartbeats, one within you, one surrounding. The message of the lullaby is that it’s okay to dim the eyes for a time, to lose sight of yourself as you sleep and as you grow: if you drift, it says, you’ll drift ashore: if you fall, you will fall into place."
— Kevin Brockmeier

"This world has need of song and sword."
— Patricia Briggs (Dragon Bones)

"My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee,
Land of the noble free,
Thy name I love;
I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring from all the trees
Sweet freedom's song;
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;
Let rocks their silence break,
The sound prolong.

Our father's God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King."
— Samuel Francis Smith