Book Quotes

The higher our self-esteem, the stronger the drive to express ourselves, reflecting the sense of richness within. The lower our self-esteem, the more urgent the need to 'prove' ourselves - or to forget ourselves by living mechanically and unconsciously.

If I respect myself and require that others deal with me respectfully, I send out signals and behave in ways that increase the likelihood that others will respond appropriately. When they do, I am reinforced and confirmed in my initial belief. If I lack self-respect and consequently accept discourtesy, abuse, or exploitation from others as natural, I unconsciously transmit this, and some people will treat me at my self-estimate. When this happens, and I submit to it, my self-respect deteriorates still more.

I am the king and you could've been my Red Queen. Now you are nothing.

I'll make the other scream for you, Mare, every last one. Not just your parents. Not just your siblings. But every single one like you. I'm going to find them, and they will die with you in their thoughts, knowing this is the fate you have brought them.

A lie will raise me up, and one day another lie will bring me down.

To look powerful is to be powerful.

In the fairy tales, the poor girl smiles when she becomes a princess. Right now, I don't know if I'll ever smile again.

The gods rule us still. They have come down from the stars. And they are no longer kind.

Anyone can betray anyone.

Rise, red as the dawn.

There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other.

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change."

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future.

Differences of habit and language are nothing at all if our aims are identical and our hearts are open.

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it.

After all, to the well-organised mind, death is but the next great adventure.

'Ah, music,' he said, wiping his eyes. 'A magic beyond all we do here!'

The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.

She was saying goodbye and she didn't even know it.

I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

Those that we love never truly leave us, Harry. There are things that death cannot touch.

You ask me, of all people, how to protect a boy in terrible danger? We cannot protect the young from harm. Pain must and will come.

Draco Malfoy: "You - the three of you - you shone you know? You liked each other. You had fun. I envied you those friendships more than anything else."

They were great men, with huge flaws, and you know what – those flaws almost made them greater.

Albus Dumbledore: "Harry, there is never a perfect answer in this messy, emotional world. Perfection is beyond the reach of humankind, beyond the reach of magic. In every shining moment of happiness is that drop of poison: the knowledge that pain will come again. Be honest to those you love, show your pain. To suffer is as human as to breathe."

Some women are meant to change the world, while others are meant to hold it together. And then there are those of us who simply don't want to be in it, because we know no matter how much we struggle, we can't comfortably fit.

When we're awake, we see what we need to see. When we're asleep, we see what is really there.

Heroes didn't leap tall buildings or stop bullets with an outstretched hand; they didn't wear boots and capes. They bled, and they bruised, and their superpowers were as simple as listening, or loving. Heroes were ordinary people who knew that even if their own lives were impossibly knotted, they could untangle someone else's. And maybe that one act could lead someone to rescue you right back.

Love is not a 'because', it's a 'no matter what'.

'It was a mistake,' you said. But the cruel thing was, it felt like the mistake was mine, for trusting you.

It's one thing to fall in love. It's another to feel someone else fall in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love. Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps because I am afraid, and he gives me courage.

The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.

Avoiding risk is not much of a goal... whether you crawl into a hole or walk a high wire, nobody gets out of here alive. We cannot grow without challenge.

The heartfelt realization of one's insignificance yields a calming sense of being completely connected to the greater whole. As a tiny part of the world and humanity, I now feel more at peace and much larger than I ever felt as a man alone.

In addition to the little ecosystem developing around my raft, I am constantly surrounded by a display of natural wonders. The acrobatic dorados perform beneath ballets of fluffy white clouds. The clouds glide across the sky until they join at the horizon to form whirling, flaming sunsets that are slowly doused by nightfall. Then, as if the sun had suddenly crashed, thousands of glistening galaxies are flung out into deep black night. There is no bigger sky country than the sea. But I cannot enjoy the incredible beauty around me. It lies beyond my grasp, taunting me. Knowing it can be stolen from me at any time, by a Dorado or shark attack or by a deflating raft, I cannot relax and appreciate it. It is beauty surrounded by ugly fear. I write in my log that it is a view of heaven from a seat in hell.

There is a magnificent intensity in life that comes when we are not in control but are only reacting, living, surviving.

He loved libraries. Nowhere else in the world felt so safe and homey. Nowhere else smelled like books and dust and happy solitude quite like a library did.

Because pieces of your heart clearly weigh more when they're sitting shattered at the bottom of your stomach.

Bystanders who do nothing give bullies permission inadvertently to go on being bullies. Most are afraid they’ll lose friends or be bullied themselves if they help victims or report bullies, and some feel guilty for years afterward.

My self-wroth is not linked to your cruel words and actions.
My self-esteem is not affected by your deliberate attempts to destroy my character.
You have no power over me.
You will not silence me.

It was because of the way you treated me that I learned to be my own person, have my own opinion, stand my ground. It’s at least partially because I survived you that I’m the person I am today.

In order to find some solution to the bullying problem, we’ll have to be more tolerant of ambiguity, subtlety, and strangeness not just in other people but in ourselves. It may be important to your identity that you are a soccer player, but it may be equally important that you can whistle the national anthem backward and make the world’s best spicy popcorn and do a wicked impression of Victoria Beckham. Schools, parents, and educational endeavors should encourage people not just to empathize but to discover and celebrate the weirdness in others and in ourselves. We need not just to think but to live outside the box. Weirdness is good. It keeps things interesting.

Bullying is a horrible thing. It sticks with you forever. It poisons you. But only if you let it.