It doesn't matter if you're born in a duck yard, so long as you are hatched from a swan's egg!

The only virtue a character needs to possess between hardcovers, even if he bears a real person's name, is vitality: if he comes to life in our imaginations, he passes the test.

Stephen Vizinczey

Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at.

Laurence Sterne

Hermione had taken his hand again and was gripping it tightly. He could not look at her, but returned the pressure, now taking deep, sharp gulps of the night air, trying to steady himself, trying to regain control. He should have brought something to give them, and he had not thought of it, and every plant in the graveyard was leafless and frozen. But Hermione raised her wand, moved it in a circle through the air, and a wreath of Christmas roses blossomed before them. Harry caught it and laid it on his parent's grave.As soon as he stood up he wanted to leave: He did not think he could stand another moment there. He put his arm around Hermione's shoulders, and she put hers around his waist, and they turned in silence and walked away through the snow, past Dumbledore's mother and sister, back toward the dark church and the out-of-sight kissing gate.

J.K. Rowling

Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights.

Jonathan Sacks

It isn't against the Law to be an idiot.

Cassandra Clare

Success is very ephemeral. You depend entirely on the desire of others, which makes it difficult to relax.

Eva Green

Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Kahlil Gibran

I have very little faith that I'll ever find someone. I've had some bad luck and I've made some bad choices - not in men, but in how I've chosen to deal with relationships.

Selma Blair

If it was raining soup, the Irish would go out with forks.

Brendan Behan

They walked through the rainy dark like gaunt ghosts, and Garraty didn't like to look at them. They were the walking dead.

Stephen King

More than anything else, I believe it's our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny.

Anthony Robbins

Discovery is always rape of the natural world. Always.

Michael Crichton