“Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.”

“You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before and she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfect, you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together; but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold on to her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can break: her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze, and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, tell her when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.”

“When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, "Damn, that was fun."”

“When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.”

“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case, you fail by default.”

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

“So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”

“Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.”

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“Never laugh at live dragons.”

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

“It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be.”

“The truth is everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.”

“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”

“You can't force love, I realized. It's there or it isn't. If it's not there, you've got to be able to admit it. If it is there, you've got to do whatever it takes to protect the ones you love.”

“I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go; things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right; you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself; and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”

“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving.”

“What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.”

“If you're reading this...”

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

“I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.”

“I've never fooled anyone. I've let people fool themselves. They didn't bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn't argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn't.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

“Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.”

“So it's not going to be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're going to have to work at this every day, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, every day. You and me... every day.”

“I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”

“I do not want people to be very agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them a great deal.”

“Sleep is good, he said, and books are better.”

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

“The marks humans leave are too often scars.”

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint.”

“Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.”

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.”

“"I don't want to be a man," said Jace. "I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can't confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead." "Well," said Luke, "you're doing a fantastic job."”

“Let us find the dam snack bar. We should eat while we can.”

“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”

“Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.”