Randall Munroe

Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.

But I’ve never seen the Icarus story as a lesson about the limitations of humans. I see it as a lesson about the limitations of wax as an adhesive.

There’s no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word “NO” scrawled over and over in charred blood.

The role of gender in society is the most complicated thing I’ve ever spent a lot of time learning about, and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about quantum mechanics.

Your plane would fly pretty well, except it would be on fire the whole time, and then it would stop flying, and then stop being a plane.

I can't remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you're saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it's not literally illegal to express.

Jessica Knoll

Moving on doesn’t mean you don’t talk about it. Or hurt about it. It’s always going to hurt.

All my life, I’ve found it difficult to advocate for myself, to ask for what I want. I fear burdening people so much.

My favorite strategy is to feign inferiority and encourage my enemy’s arrogance.

Sometimes I feel like a windup doll, like I have to reach behind and turn my golden key to produce a greeting, a laugh, whatever the socially acceptable reaction should be.

There is something about seeing someone from behind, something about the way people walk away, that I've always found unnervingly intimate. Maybe it's because the back of the body isn't on guard the way the front is - the slouch of the shoulders and the flex in the back muscles, that's the most honest you'll ever see a person.

By the end of it all I just assumed no one ever told the truth, and that was when I started lying too.

But faith doesn’t mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don’t, and not giving up until you see it too.

Angela Marsons

There was an old adage that if you couldn't say anything nice, get the hell away before you said something very wrong.

Conscience was no more than the fear of being caught.

Intrinsically selfish in nature, grief was for the living.

Much as they wished to, they knew they were incapable of saving the whole world - but sometimes you just had to deal with what was right in front of you.

People are normally murdered because of something they have done, something they are doing or something they are going to do.

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

Every single profession is fraught with inconsistencies. It is the exception that often proves the rule. I believe passionately in what I do, but do I accept that not everyone will behave the way I'd like them to? Of course I do, because that is human nature. 

John Sandford

I'm so horny the crack of dawn isn't safe.

Oh yeah, I heard you got born again.' she said. 'Which you needed since they fucked up the first time

Time passes, but sometimes it beats the shit out of you as it goes.

It’s the way of the world, man. There are the worker bees, and the manager bees. The worker bees take care of the work, the manager bees take care of themselves.

First she got Jesus, probably fifteen years ago, and that didn’t work out, so she tried Scientology, and that didn’t help, but it cost a lot of money, so she tried Buddhism and yoga, and those didn’t work, so she started drinking. I think that helped, because she’s still drinking.

If the AG had been a lightbulb instead of a lawyer, he would have been about a twenty-watt.

Bill Browder

Seventy years of communism had destroyed the work ethic of an entire nation. Millions of Russians had been sent to the gulags for showing the slightest hint of personal initiative. The Soviets severely penalized independent thinkers, so the natural self-preservation reaction was to do as little as possible and hope that nobody would notice you.

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep at night.

If I’m killed, you will know who did it. When my enemies read this book, they will know that you know.

The imagination is a horrible thing when it’s preoccupied with exactly how someone might try to kill you.

Russian stories never have happy endings.

In his mind, he hasn’t succeeded until his opponent has failed, and he can’t be happy until his opponent is miserable.

Connor Franta

Race, gender, religion, sexuality, we are all people and that's it. We're all people. We're all equal.

Girls can be athletic. Guys can have feelings. Girls can be smart. Guys can be creative. And vice versa. Gender is specific only to your reproductive organs (and sometimes not even to those), not your interest, likes, dislikes, goals, and ambitions.

It’s okay. It may not seem like it right now, but you are going to be fine. I know it’s scary, but don’t be afraid. You are who you are, and you should love that person, and I don’t want anyone to have to go through 22 years of their life afraid to accept that.

I don’t want anyone to hold back who they are. It’s not okay… it’s not a good thing.

Question: Why does life have to feel like such a struggle at times? Answer: Because without the struggle, the triumphs wouldn’t taste as sweet.

I would rather have 1 amazing best friend than 100 decent regular friends. It's not about quantity, it's about quality

Let your smile change the world, but don't let the world change your smile.

They say the truth will set you free, but what they neglect to mention is what happens when the truth isn't what you want to hear.

Leah Remini

If there is one thing I can brag about and be proud of in my life, it’s my dedication to friendship. If I call you a friend, I mean it. You are now on par with being a family member. Friendships are not made overnight; it takes time, effort, and energy. For me, friendships are tested not in the best of times, but in the worst of times. You don’t always get a second chance to be there for someone when they really need you. So when I say I will be there, I mean it

By their actions, they will show you who they are.

People say that celebrities stop developing emotionally at the age of their success—which for Tom had been with Risky Business at twenty-one.

There is no “right” way to be. I am flawed and imperfect, but am uniquely me.

In a time of universal deceit—telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Belief and faith are great, but very few people have been led astray by thinking for themselves.

Joseph Finder

I would argue that coffee has been far more important to literature than alcohol.

As the saying goes not every conspiracy is a theory.

And obstructing justice, which is another felony.

I’ve always hated business breakfasts; I believe Oscar Wilde had a point when he said that only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

You know what I always say—never let an asshole rent space in your head.

Stay focused on the now. Get through this, leave the long-term choices for the future.

You know what’s wrong with the world today, bro? The computers. They’re ruining the human race.” “Computers?” “You ever see elks mate?” Russell said.

Challenge is tough. It needs efforts, energy and time.

Erik Larson

It was so easy to disappear, so easy to deny knowledge, so very easy in the smoke and din to mask that something dark had taken root. This was Chicago, on the eve of the greatest fair in history.

I must confess a shameful secret: I love Chicago best in the cold.

I was born with the devil in me,' [Holmes] wrote. 'I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet can help the inspiration to sing.

His weakness was his belief that evil had boundaries.

Beneath the gore and smoke and loam, this book is about the evanescence of life, and why some men choose to fill their brief allotment of time engaging the impossible, others in the manufacture of sorrow. In the end it is a story of the ineluctable conflict between good and evil, daylight and darkness, the White City and the Black.

Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes.

Beside his own person and his own interests, nothing is sacred to the psychopath.

Sylvia Day

I’ve always seen you, angel. From the moment you found me, I’ve seen nothing but you.

The only way I'm keeping my hands off her is if I'm dead. Find another way to fix us.

I'd rather argue with you, angel, then laugh with anyone else.

People get over love. They can live without it, they can move on. Love can be lost and found again. But that won't happen for me. I won't survive you, Eva.

I'll kill for you, give up everything i own for you...but i won't give you up.

I didn't know I was looking for anything until I saw you.

I want there to be happily-ever-afters for the fucked-up crowd. Show me the way, Eva honey. Make me believe.

You’re the greatest risk I’ve ever taken.” His pressed his lips gently to mine. “And the greatest reward.

He was the kind of guy that made a woman want to rip his shirt open and watch the buttons scatter along with her inhibitions.