“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

“I wanted the whole world or nothing.”

“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”

“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

“I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long; I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it, and I will love you through that as well. If you don't need the medication, I will love you, too. There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than depression and I am braver than loneliness, and nothing will ever exhaust me.”

“Sometimes fate is like a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions. You change direction but the sandstorm chases you. You turn again, but the storm adjusts. Over and over you play this out, like some ominous dance with death just before dawn. Why? Because this storm isn't something that blew in from far away, something that has nothing to do with you. This storm is you. Something inside of you. So all you can do is give in to it, step right inside the storm, closing your eyes and plugging up your ears so the sand doesn't get in, and walk through it, step by step. There's no sun there, no moon, no direction, no sense of time. Just fine white sand swirling up into the sky like pulverized bones. That's the kind of sandstorm you need to imagine.”

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

“Keep going.”

“We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

“Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

“God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas but for scars.”

“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.”

“It is good to love many things; therein lies the true strength. Whosoever loves much performs much, can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.”

“Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.”

“Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!”

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something sometime in your life.”

“Nothing that's worthwhile is ever easy. Remember that.”

“If you're going through hell, keep going.”

“I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

“Always do what you are afraid to do.”

“It's only after you've stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.”

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”

“I don't want to die without any scars.”

“I hope that in this year to come you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, you're doing something.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.”

“Everything is possible. The impossible just takes longer.”

“For you, a thousand times over.”

“It's a metaphor. You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing.”

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life's a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass.”

“If pain must come, may it come quickly. I have a life to live, and I need to live it in the best way possible. If he has to make a choice, may he make it now. Then I will either wait for him or forget him.”

“If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

“Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists... it is real... it is possible... it's yours.”

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain: when you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

“"I don't care!" Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I've had enough, I've seen enough, I want out, I want it to end, I don't care anymore!"”

“"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.”