Requiem

This is what amazes me: that people are new every day. That they are never the same. You must always invent them, and they must invent themselves, too. 

~Lauren Oliver 

The Night Circus

"I mean only that I hope they find darkness or paradise without fear of it, if they can."

~Erin Morgenstern (said by character Alexander) 

The Night Circus

"Stories have changed, my dear boy," the man in the grey suit says, his voice almost imperceptibly sad. "There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves in my experience, at least the ones worth something, in any case. There are no longer simple tales with quests and beasts and happy endings. The quests lack clarity of goal or path. The beasts take different forms and are difficult to recognize for what they are. And there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur, your story is part of your sister's story is part of many other stories, and there is no telling where any of them may lead. Good and evil are a great deal more complex than a princess and a dragon, or a wolf and a scarlet-clad little girl. And is not the dragon the hero of his own story?"

~Erin Morgenstern (said by character Alexander) 

The Crucible

Proctor: (grasping her by the throat as though he would strangle her). Make your peace with it! Now Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretense is ripped away- make your peace! (He throws her to the floor, where she sobs, "I cannot, I cannot..." And now, half to himself, staring, and turning to the open door) Peace. It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now. (He walks as though toward a great horror, facing the open sky.) Aye, naked! And the wind, God's icy wind, will blow!

(And she is over and over again sobbing, "I cannot, I cannot, I cannot," as)

The curtain falls

~Arthur Miller

Indian Education

Believe me, everything looks like a noose if you stare at it long enough. 

~Sherman Alexie 

Siddhartha

"Most people, Kamala, are like a falling leaf, which drifts and turns in the air, and sways, and zigzags to the ground. But others, just a few, are like stars; they travel a fixed route, no wind reaches them; their law and their route lie within themselves."

~Hermann Hesse (said by character Siddartha)

Siddhartha

He saw merchants doing business, princes leaving for the hunt, mourners lamenting their dead, whores offering their services, doctors busy with patients, priests determining the proper day to begin sowing, lovers in love, mothers nursing their children- and none of it was worth the trouble of a glance, it was all a lie, it all stank,it all stank of lies, it all gave the illusion of meaning and happiness and beauty, and it was all unacknowledged decay. The world had a bitter taste. Life was torment. 

~Hermann Hesse 

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb

The squat pen rests. 

I'll dig with it. 

~Seamus Heaney

Sever

And I wrap my arms around him, because I am human and selfish and breathing. I'm still alive and I don't know for how long, or what for. I shudder and sob, and the guilt and the hurt are so heavy, but not so much that it stops my heart from beating. 

~Lauren DeStefano

Sever

There's a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom. 

~Lauren DeStefano

Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog

I am his Highness' dog at Kew;

Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

~Alexander Pope

Sever

He says just one word to his son, nodding into the daylight. "Look."

It's an astounding word. It's a gift. 

Bowen looks, and for now everything he sees is beautiful. 

~Lauren DeStefano

We Bought a Zoo

"You know, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just, literally, 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I promise you...something great will come of it."

~Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon)

Sever

"It taught me that there are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes."

~Lauren DeStefano (said by character Linden Ashby)

Vow

I can't use what I can't abuse 

~Garbage

-

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. 

~Salvador Dali

Intouchables

"Everyone's doing their best. But in the end we're all really bored."

~Philippe (François Cluzet)

Dance with the Devil

So when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never

Because a dance with the devil might last forever 

~Immortal Technique 

Chemistry: The Scientific Method

In other words, we tend to see what we expect to see and often fail to notice things that we do not expect. 

The progress of science is often affected more by the frailties of humans and their institutions than by the limitations of scientific measuring devices. The scientific methods are only as effective as the humans using them. 

~Zumdahl

The Wolf Howled

The wolf howled under the leaves
And spit out the prettiest feathers
Of his meal of fowl:
Like him I consume myself.

~Arthur Rimbaud

Boy Meets World

"I love you all. 

Class dismissed."

~Mr. Feeny (William Daniels)

The Family Fang

"But do you enjoy it?" Annie asked. Raven stared at Annie's reflection in the mirror. "I don't hate it," Raven said. "You spend enough time with anything, that's all you can really ask for."

~Kevin Wilson 

-

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.

 ~Anais Nin

What Would You Do (Live)

"What would you do if your son was at home,
Crying all alone on the bedroom floor,
'Cause he's hungry,
And the only way to feed him is to, sleep with a man for a little bit of money?
And his daddy's gone,
In and out of lock down,
I ain't got a job now,
He's just smokin' rock now,
So for you this is just a good time,
But for me, this is what I call life."

Girl, you ain't the only one to have a baby,
That's no excuse to be living all crazy
So she stared me right square in the eye
and said, "Everyday I wake up hopin' to die."

~Bastille

Heart of Darkness

We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember because we were travelling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign—and no memories. The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free.

~Joseph Conrad

My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark

Be careful making wishes in the dark, dark. 

~Fall Out Boy

Sonnet XVII

I love you as one loves certain dark things. 

~Pablo Neruda

City of Lost Souls

It was strange how your world could shift on its axis and everything you trusted could invert itself in what seemed like no time at all. 

~Cassandra Clare 

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The naked hulk alongside came
And the twain were casting dice;
`The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge