No matter who the characters are, you can strip them down and find small universal truths.

To love IS to destroyand to be loved is to be the one destroyed

Cassandra Clare

My extravagance is my garden - it's the first thing I look at every morning when I wake up. It gives me so much pleasure.

Ina Garten

One of the questions asked by al-Balkhi, and often repeated to this day, is this: Why do the children of Israel continue to suffer? My grandmother Dodo thought it was because the were jealous. The seder for Passover (which is a shame-faced simulacrum of a Hellenic question-and-answer session, even including the wine) tells the children that it's one of those things that happens to every Jewish generation. After the or or Holocaust, many rabbis tried to tell the survivors that the immolation had been a punishment for 'exile,' or for insufficient attention to the Covenant. This explanation was something of a flop with those whose parents or children had been the raw material for the 'proof,' so for a time the professional interpreters of god's will went decently quiet. This interval of ambivalence lasted until the war of 1967, when it was announced that the divine purpose could be discerned after all. How wrong, how foolish, to have announced its discovery prematurely! The exile and the Shoah could now both be understood, as part of a heavenly if somewhat roundabout scheme to recover the Western Wall in Jerusalem and other pieces of biblically mandated real estate.I regard it as a matter of self-respect to spit in public on rationalizations of this kind. (They are almost as repellent, in their combination of arrogance, masochism, and affected false modesty, as Edith Stein's 'offer' of her life to expiate the regrettable unbelief in Jesus of her former fellow Jews.) The sage Jews are those who have put religion behind them and become in so many societies the leaven of the secular and the atheist.

Christopher Hitchens

If I remember right there are five excuses for drinking: the visit of a guest, present thirst, future thirst, the goodness of the wine, and any other excuse you choose!

Pete Sermond

But this is touching, Severus, said Dumbledore seriously. Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?For him? shouted Snape. Expecto Patronum!From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears.After all this time?Always, said Snape.And the scene shifted

J.K. Rowling

Promises make debt, and debt makes promises.

Danish proverb

History repeats itself. Historians repeat each other.

Philip Guedalla

I used to think that if I had success I would have freedom. But I have less freedom now than I've ever had. And what gives me satisfaction is not the jewelry and not the cars. What gives me satisfaction is doing things for others, like children.

Criss Angel

The more grateful we are, the more we practice this in our everyday lives, the more connected we become to the universe around us.

Stephen Richards

I am grateful for - though I can't keep up with - the flood of articles, theses, and textbooks that mean to share insight concerning the nature of poetry.

A. R. Ammons

The first demand any work of art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)

C.S. Lewis

It's a difficult undertaking. I've been married for four years and I see this movie as a cautionary tale about people who've gone deeply out of communication.

Mark Ruffalo