"Yes, he thought again, he would come back. He would buy further scraps of beautiful rubbish. He would buy the engraving of St. Clement's Dane, take it out of its frame, and carry it home concealed under the jacket of his overalls. He would drag the rest of that poem out of Mr. Charrington's memory. Even the lunatic project of renting the room upstairs flashed through his mind again. For perhaps five seconds exaltation made him careless, and he stepped out onto the pavement without so much as a preliminary glance through the window. He had even started humming an inmpovised tune."

-1984, George Orwell

"The gods are not deserving of reproof because of this work of skill: a good bridge is Bifrost, but nothing in this world is of such nature that it may be relied on forever."
-Prose Edda

It is dangerous to hold men back from death. I feel it is unhappiness which drives him to meditate on the moon. I want to give him life and adventure, but I cannot convey to him that it is the mood, not the places, the relationships, which can light up shabby hotel rooms, stained cafe tables, brimming noisy streets, sour wine."
-Anais Nin

"You lie so well," he says sadly.
"I only lie as doctors do, for the good of their patients."

I do not do to others what was done to me.

He wanted to utter an angry denial, but she was smiling at him as if this were merely a conversational joke, and he had no capacity for the sort of conversations which were not supposed to be meant, so he did not answer.
-Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand

If joy is the aim and the core of existance, she thought, and if that which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one's deepest secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment.

"Whatever we are, it's we who move the world and it's we who'll pull it through."

She remembered the love the man she loved bore her, and joy came back into her soul, and with a smile of happiness she put her head on the pillow. 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry; but what could I do? It's not my fault,' she said to herself; but an inner voice spoke otherwise.
-Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

And faith and freedom are inextricably linked: It is not for priests or pastors or presidents or kings to compel belief, for to do so tresspasses on each individual's God-given liberty of min and heart. If the Lord himself chose not to force obedience from those he created, then who are men to try?
-Jon Meacham

"Why do you persist in messing things up? I have never been a communist."
"But I have, and I believe it's premature, but rational, and it has a future, as Christianity had in the first centuries."
-Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

What a day this has been
What a rare mood I'm in
Why it's almost like
being in love.

"There was nothing in the dark that wasn't there when the lights were on."

"Hate is just a kind of love you give to people who suck."

You've got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was.

"Yes, they're sharing a drink they call loneliness
But it's better than drinking alone"

Parce que moi je rève, moi je ne suis pas.

Curve: The loveliest distance between two points. ~Mae West