“Lots of things are mysteries But that doesn't mean there isn't an answer to them. It's just that scientists haven't found the answer yet.”
―
Mark Haddon,
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time“Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in in ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic. As one tends the graves of the dead, so I tend the books. And every day I open a volume or two, read a few lines or pages, allow the voices of the forgotten dead to resonate inside my head.”
―
Diane Setterfield,
The Thirteenth Tale“There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.”
―
Diane Setterfield,
The Thirteenth Tale“But only when it was too late did they realize the price they must pay for escaping their destiny. Every Happy Ever After was tainted. Fate, at first so amenable, so reasonable, so open to negotiation, ends up by exacting a cruel revenge for happiness.”
―
Diane Setterfield,
The Thirteenth Tale“In the world I notice persons are nearly always stressed and have no time...I don't know how persons with jobs do the jobs and all the living as well...I guess the time gets spread very thin like butter all over the world, the roads and houses and playgrounds and stores, so there's only a little smear of time on each place, then everyone has to hurry on to the next bit.”
―
Emma Donoghue,
Room“Each time I told my story, I lost a bit, the smallest drop of pain. It was that day that I knew I wanted to tell the story of my family. Because horror on Earth is real and it is every day. It is like a flower or like the sun; it cannot be contained.”
―
Alice Sebold,
The Lovely Bones“As I have said, you have no reason to trust me, and an excellent reason not to.”
―
Robin McKinley,
Beauty“You should just accept who you are, flaws and all, because if you try to be someone you aren't, then eventually some turkey is going to shit all over your well-crafted facade, so you might as well save yourself the effort and enjoy your zombie books.”
―
Jenny Lawson,
Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir“And then something invisible snapped insider her, and that which had come together commenced to fall apart.”
―
John Green,
Looking for Alaska“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.”
―
John Green,
Looking for Alaska“After all, what is happiness? Love, they tell me. But love doesn't bring and never has brought happiness. On the contrary, it's a constant state of anxiety, a battlefield; it's sleepless nights, asking ourselves all the time if we're doing the right thing. Real love is composed of ecstasy and agony.”
―
Paulo Coelho,
The Witch Of Portobello“The day is made up of 24 hours and an infinite number of moments. We need to be aware of those moments and make the most of them regardless of whether we're busy doing something or contemplating life.”
―
Paulo Coelho,
The Witch Of Portobello“Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn't have the courage to say "yes" to life?”
―
Paulo Coelho,
Eleven Minutes“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
―
Stephen Chbosky,
The Perks of Being a Wallflower“So, I guess we are who we are for alot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”
―
Stephen Chbosky,
The Perks of Being a Wallflower“Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.”
―
Stephen Chbosky,
The Perks of Being a Wallflower“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”
―
Roald Dahl,
Matilda“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
―
J.K. Rowling,
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows“Because you don't notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.”
―
Libba Bray,
A Great and Terrible Beauty“Reality is a state of mind. To the banker, the money in his ledger book is all very real, though he doesn't actually see it or touch it. But to the Brahma, it simply doesn't exist the way the air and the earth, pain and loss do. To him, the banker's reality is folly. To the banker, the Brahma's ideas are as inconsequential as dust.”
―
Libba Bray,
A Great and Terrible Beauty“What a slut time is. She screws everybody.”
―
John Green,
The Fault in Our Stars
