"Well, I have lost you; and I lost you fairly;
In my own way, and with my full consent.
Say what you will, kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths more proud than this one went.

Some nights of apprehension and hot weeping
I will confess; but that's permitted me;
Day dried my eyes; I was not one for keeping
Rubbed in a cage a wing that would be free.

If I had loved you less or played you slyly
I might have held you for a summer more,
But at the cost of words I value highly,
And no such summer as the one before.

Should I outlive this anguish, and men do,
I shall have only good to say of you."
— Edna St. Vincent Millay

"Remember that yours is not the only heart that may be wishing for love."
— Cameron Dokey (Before Midnight: A Retelling of "Cinderella")

"Stupidity is much the same all the world over"
— John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)

"When one reads hurriedly and nervously, having in mind written tests and examinations, one's brain becomes encumbered with a lot of bric-a-brac for which there seems to be little use."
— Helen Keller

"The one I felt and still feel most is lack of time. I used to have time to think, to reflect, my mind and I. We would sit together of an evening and listen to the inner melodies of the spirit, which one hears only in leisure moments when the words of
some loved poet touch a deep, sweet chord in the soul that until then had been silent. But in college there is no time to commune with one's thoughts. One goes to college to learn, it seems, not to think. When one enters the portals of learning, one leaves the dearest pleasures--solitude, books and imagination--outside with the whispering pines. I suppose I ought to find some comfort in the thought that I am laying up treasures for future enjoyment, but I am improvident enough to prefer present joy to hoarding riches against a rainy day."
— Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)

"...our enjoyment of the great works of literature depends more upon the depth of our sympathy than upon our understanding."
— Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)

"What is it really like to be engaged?" asked Anne curiously.

"Well, that all depends on who you're engaged to," answered Diana, with that maddening air of superior wisdom always assumed by those who are engaged over those who are not."
— L.M. Montgomery

"Love so joyfully and freely given can never be taken away. It is never truly gone."
— Cameron Dokey (Before Midnight: A Retelling of "Cinderella")

"I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time."
— Mary Ann Shaffer (The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society)

"I do not mean to object to a thorough knowledge of the famous works we read. I object only to the interminable comments and bewildering criticisms that teach but one thing: there are as many opinions as there are men."
— Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)

"Wow. Who would want a fish for a pet when they could have a turtle?!""
— Christopher Paul Curtis (The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963)

"I have come to the conclusion that women believe marriage is proof that they have worth. It is the ultimate game of choosing sides for teams. It is hard to be picked last, but not to be chosen at all is unbearable - especially if you know that you are a good player and can help the team. Not only are you excluded but you also have to stay around and watch the game."
— Kristen McMain Oaks (A Single Voice)

"Sometimes, it's totally confusing to be me! Only writing in my diary helps me feel a little less crazy."
— Julia Alvarez (Before We Were Free)

"'We shall me much less miserable together.' -Emma Darwin to husband Charles upon grief for loss of daughter Annie"
— Deborah Heiligman (Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith)

"The sad heart needs work to do."
— Joan Bauer (Hope Was Here)

"Where else," I will say, "does an old turtle crossing the path Make all the difference in the world?""
— Patricia MacLachlan (All the Places to Love)

"Memory is the mother of all wisdom. "
— Aeschylus

"But the examinations are the chief bugbears of my college life. Although I have faced them many times and cast them down and made them bite the dust, yet they rise again and menace me with pale looks, until like Bob Acres I feel my courage oozing out at my finger ends. The days before these ordeals take place are spent in cramming your mind with mystic formula and indigestible dates—unpalatable diets, until you wish that books and science and you were buried in the depths of the sea.

At last the dreaded hour arrives, and you are a favoured being indeed if you feel prepared, and are able at the right time to call to your standard thoughts that will aid you in that supreme effort. It happens too often that your trumpet call is unheeded. It is most perplexing and exasperating that just at the moment when you need your memory and a nice sense of discrimination, these faculties take to themselves wings and fly away. The facts you have garnered with such infinite trouble invariably fail you at a pinch."
— Helen Keller (The Story of My Life)