The best Book Quotes (Page 5)

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.

The worst pain in the world goes beyond the physical. Even further beyond any other emotional pain one can feel. It is the betrayal of a friend.

Because teachers, no matter how kind, no matter how friendly, are sadistic and evil to the core.

It never gets easier, missing you. And sometimes I wonder if it ever will.

The world is full of monsters with friendly faces.

If citizens followed their leaders' example throughout history, the human race would have died out centuries ago.

If stakes and garlic were the top two things that could kill a vampire, ninth grade gym was a close third.

'Morning, sunshine.'
Vlad blinked at her. 'Morning, sulfuric acid.'
'Pardon me?'
'Well, isn't it just kinda wrong to call a vampire 'sunshine'?'

'I drive well!'
'Says who your mom?'
'No actually, she won't even get in the car with me.'

A label doesn't make something so. A label is just a word. It's what a person does that makes them who they are.

It was tough attempting to be social with people who'd rather pretend you didn't exist.

Mmmmm. Warm chocolate chip cookies. Not even AB negative can compare.

M for Maven, M for monster, M for murder.

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

If you fail, you burn

Break my heart. Break it a thousand times if you like. It was only ever yours to break anyway.

I'm sad because my sadness is not sadness.

The only obsession everyone wants: 'love.' People think that in falling in love they make themselves whole? The Platonic union of souls? I think otherwise. I think you're whole before you begin. And the love fractures you. You're whole, and then you're cracked open.

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring.
Renewed shall be blade that was broken
The crownless again shall be king.

What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.

We learn more by remembering than forgetting.

You only get healing by remembering.
Forgetting is just suppression.

Many species lack the ability to defy their own animal instincts and allow their intellect to prevail.

The apple had fallen right next to the crazy tree.

I know that the future is scary at times. But there's just no escaping it.

I’d spent my entire life overdosing on uncut escapism, willingly allowing fantasy to become my reality.

If there were other civilizations out there, why would they ever want to make contact with humanity? If this was how we treated each other, how much kindness could we possibly show to some race of bug-eyed beings from beyond?

Now whenever I watched a Star Wars film, I found myself wondering how the Empire had the technology to make long-distance holographic phone calls between planets light-years apart, and yet no one had figured out how to make a remote-controlled TIE Fighter or X-Wing yet.

That’s how you know you’ve mastered a videogame - when a bunch of butt-hurt crybabies start to accuse you of cheating in an effort to cope with the beatdown they’ve just suffered at your hands.

That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.

For a bunch of hairless apes, we've actually managed to invent some pretty incredible things.