Stanisław Lem

Good books tell the truth, even when they're about things that never have been and never will be. They're truthful in a different way.

We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is.

Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.

Man has gone out to explore other worlds and other civilizations without having explored his own labyrinth of dark passages and secret chambers, and without finding what lies behind doorways that he himself has sealed.

I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet.

What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.

We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.

On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? 

Sidney Sheldon

Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

Nothing lasts forever.

You have two choices. You can keep running and hiding and blaming the world for your problems, or you can stand up for yourself and decide to be somebody important.

I'm a woman. I have a right to change my mind.

Being poor is only romantic in books

To be successful you need friends and to be very successful you need enemies.

The difference between a rebel and a patriot depends upon who is in power at the moment.

Don't give up. There are too many nay-sayers out there who will try to discourage you. Don't listen to them. The only one who can make you give up is yourself. 

Because there was a hunger in me to see everything and do everything. I wanted to be everyone I saw. I wasn't enough for me. Can you understand that?

Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better.

Business is a game, played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game.

Pema Chödrön

The only reason we don't open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don't feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else's eyes. 

If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.

The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It's a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

You are the sky. Everything else – it’s just the weather.

Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.

The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.

Francesca Lia Block

You are in my blood. I can't help it. We can't be anywhere except together.

Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth

Magic can be found in stolen moments.

A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate, when you haven't eaten chocolate in a year. A kiss about palm trees speeding by, trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne. A kiss about spotlights fanning the sky and the swollen sea spilling like tears all over your legs.

Our eyelashes brushed like they would weave together by themselves, turning us into one wild thing. I say, “I think I missed you before I met you even.

I want him to see the flowers in my eyes and hear the songs in my hands.

My mother says that pain is hidden in everyone you see. She says try to imagine it like big bunches of flowers that everyone is carrying around with them. Think of your pain like a big bunch of red roses, a beautiful thorn necklace. Everyone has one.

What sexual preference do you hope she has?” “Happiness.” Isn't that cool?

Allen Ginsberg II

Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.

The weight of the world is love. 
Under the burden of solitude, 
under the burden of dissatisfaction 
the weight, the weight we carry is love.

I don't think there is any truth. There are only points of view.

Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening.

We're all golden sunflowers inside.

Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does.”

Whoever controls the media, the 
images, controls the culture.

Our heads are round so thought can change direction.

I know too much and not enough.

Everything is holy! everybody's holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman's an angel!

My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed.

Ransom Riggs

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.

When someone won't let you in, eventually you stop knocking.

We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high.

Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was.

I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss.

Sometimes it's better not to look back.

I had just come to accept that my life would be ordinary when extraordinary things began to happen.

Laughing doesn’t make bad things worse any more than crying makes them better.

Michael Palin

You can't get a suit of armour and a rubber chicken just like that. You have to plan ahead.

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

Listen -- strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

Armageddon is not around the corner. This is only what the people of violence want us to believe. The complexity and diversity of the world is the hope for the future.

Night falls over Machu Picchu to the sound of Abba's 'Dancing Queen'

As I work in the afternoon on committing to paper some of my morning's thoughts, I find myself just about to close on the knotty question of whether or not I believe in God. In fact I am about to type, 'I do not believe in God', when the sky goes black as ink, there is a thunderclap and a huge crash of thunder and a downpour of epic proportions. I never do complete the sentence.

I enjoy writing, I enjoy my house, my family and, more than anything I enjoy the feeling of seeing each day used to the full to actually produce something. The end.

Swami Vivekananda

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life; dream of it; think of it; live on that idea. Let the brain, the body, muscles, nerves, every part of your body be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, and this is the way great spiritual giants are produced.

You have to grow from the inside out. None can teach you, 
none can make you spiritual. 
There is no other teacher but your own soul.

In a conflict between the heart and the brain, follow your heart.

In a day, when you don't come across any problems - you can be sure that you are travelling in a wrong path.

The great secret of true success, of true happiness, is this: the man or woman who asks for no return, the perfectly unselfish person, is the most successful.

All power is within you; you can do anything and everything. Believe in that, do not believe that you are weak; do not believe that you are half-crazy lunatics, as most of us do nowadays. You can do any thing and everything, without even the guidance of any one. Stand up and express the divinity within you.

The greatest religion is to be true to your own nature. Have faith in yourselves.

Dare to be free, dare to go as far as your thought leads, and dare to carry that out in your life.

Be not Afraid of anything. You will do Marvelous work. it is Fearlessness that brings Heaven even in a moment.

Banana Yoshimoto

Sometimes people put up walls, not to keep others out, but to see who cares enough to break them down.

That's the advantage of insomnia. People who go to be early always complain that the night is too short, but for those of us who stay up all night, it can feel as long as a lifetime. You get a lot done.

Even when I try to stir myself up, I just get irritated because I can't make anything come out. And in the middle of the night I lie here thinking about all this. If I don't get back on track somehow, I'm dead, that's the sense I get. There isn't a single strong emotion inside me.

Love is the kind of thing that's already happening by the time you notice it, that's how it works, and no matter how old you get, that doesn't change. Except that you can break it up into two entirely distinct types -- love where there's an end in sight and love where there isn't.

No matter where you are, you're always a bit on your own, always an outsider.

As I grow older, much older, I will experience many things, and I will hit rock bottom again and again. Again and again I will suffer; again and again I will get back on my feet. I will not be defeated. I won't let my spirit be destroyed.

People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.

But I have my life, I’m living it. It’s twisted, exhausting, uncertain, and full of guilt, but nonetheless, there’s something there.

Truly happy memories always live on, shining. Over time, one by one, they come back to life.

No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die. Without that, I am not alive.

Frank Herbert II

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.

Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.

Education is no substitute for intelligence.

When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.