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Aldous Huxley
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad.”
Aldous Huxley
Chuck Palahniuk
“You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
David Levithan
“It was a mistake," you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.”
David Levithan, The Lover's Dictionary
Lev Grossman
“If there's a single lesson that life teaches us, it's that wishing doesn't make it so.”
Lev Grossman, The Magicians
Rainer Maria Rilke
“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
Anne Sexton
“As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.”
Anne Sexton
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
Haruki Murakami
“I want you always to remember me. Will you remember that I existed, and that I stood next to you here like this?”
Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
A.J. Cronin
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, but only saps today of its strength.”
A.J. Cronin
Margaret Atwood
“Don't let the bastards grind you down.”
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Oscar Wilde
“Who, being loved, is poor?”
Oscar Wilde
Cassandra Clare
“They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite”
Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
Audrey Hepburn
“There is more to sex appeal than just measurements. I don't need a bedroom to prove my womanliness. I can convey just as much sex appeal, picking apples off a tree or standing in the rain.”
Audrey Hepburn
William Shakespeare
“By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.”
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Jay Asher
“You can't stop the future
You can't rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
...is to press play.”
Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
Daniel J. Boorstin
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
Daniel J. Boorstin
Edna St. Vincent Millay
“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Marilyn Monroe
“I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.”
Marilyn Monroe
Veronica Roth
“Politeness is deception in pretty packaging.”
Veronica Roth, Divergent
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Maya Angelou
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
Maya Angelou
Martin Luther King Jr.
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
Leigh Bardugo
“Fear is a phoenix. You can watch it burn a thousand times and still it will return.”
Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom
Euripides
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
Euripides, The Bacchae
François Mauriac
“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.”
Francois Mauriac
Barbara Kingsolver
“Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
Mark Twain
“The trouble is not in dying for a friend, but in finding a friend worth dying for.”
Mark Twain
D.H. Lawrence
“We've got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”
D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover
Rick Riordan
“Knowing too much of your future is never a good thing.”
Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief
Cassandra Clare
“That's why when major badasses greet each other in movies, they don't say anything, they just nod. The nod means, 'I' am a badass, and I recognize that you, too, are a badass,' but they don't say anything because they're Wolverine and Magneto and it would mess up their vibe to explain.”
Cassandra Clare, City of Bones