Eric Roth

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss.

It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you.

You can be as mad as a mad dog at the way things went, you can curse the fates, but when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.

Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.

For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.

P.C. Cast

Remember, darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.

If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking , they can make you laugh.

You know how it is with cats: They don't really have owners, they have staff.

Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you.

The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express.

Actually, since I'm gay I think I should count for two guys instead of just one. I mean, in me you get the male point of view and you don't have to worry about me wanting to touch your boobies.

Because you are the superhero fledgling. I’m just your more attractive sidekick. Oh, and the herd of nerds are your dorky minions.

Don't fuck with an English major. They keep lots of useless crap trapped in their heads. Once in a while they let some of it out and it bites you square on the ass.

I seek strength, not to be greater than other, but to fight my greatest enemy, the doubts within myself.

Jasper Fforde

If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.

After all, reading is arguably a far more creative and imaginative process than writing; when the reader creates emotion in their head, or the colors of the sky during the setting sun, or the smell of a warm summer's breeze on their face, they should reserve as much praise for themselves as they do for the writer - perhaps more.

Take no heed of her.... She reads a lot of books.

Whereas story is processed in the mind in a straightforward manner, poetry bypasses rational thought and goes straight to the limbic system and lights it up like a brushfire. It's the crack cocaine of the literary world.

Governments and fashions come and go but Jane Eyre is for all time.

Religion isn't the cause of wars, it's the excuse.

If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.

Okay, this is the wisdom. First, time spent on reconnaissanse is never wasted. Second, almost anything can be improved with the addition of bacon. And finally, there is no problem on Earth that can't be ameliorated by a hot bath and a cup of tea.

Joseph Campbell

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.

If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path.

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

John Boyne

There's things that happen in a person's life that are so scorched in the memory and burned into the heart that there's no forgetting them.

Sitting around miserable all day won't make you any happier. 

What exactly was the difference? he wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?

The thing about exploring is that you have to know whether the thing you've found is worth finding. Some things are just sitting there, minding their own business, waiting to be discovered. Like America. And other things are probably better off left alone. Like a dead mouse at the back of the cupboard.

Don't make it worse by thinking it's more painful than it actually is.

Their lost voices Must continue to be heard.

Rabindranath Tagore

Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars.

Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers,
but to be fearless in facing them. Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain, but for the heart to conquer it.

You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.

Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.

The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough.

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in you. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That's the message he is sending.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child -- our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything - anger, anxiety, or possessions - we cannot be free.

Maurice Sendak

A book is really like a lover. It arranges itself in your life in a way that is beautiful.

Let the wild rumpus start!

Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.

Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!

I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.

There must be more to life than having everything!

And Max, the king of all wild things, was lonely and wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.

There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.

And the wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws.

Gordon B. Hinckley

Life is to be enjoyed, not endured.

Try a little harder to be a little better.

True love is not so much a matter of romance as it is a matter of anxious concern for the well-being of one's companion.

Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.

If Life Gets Too Hard To Stand, Kneel.

You have not failed until you quit trying.

In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed, not just endured.

Good books are as friends, willing to give to us if we are willing to make a little effort.

Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine.

Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight.

You can be smart and happy or stupid and miserable. . . it's your choice.

Louise Erdrich

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.

When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.

Love won't be tampered with, love won't go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.

To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection, it is a magnificent task. . .tremendous and foolish and human.

Some people meet the way the sky meets the earth, inevitably, and there is no stopping or holding back their love. It exists in a finished world, beyond the reach of common sense.