"the world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." —horace walpole

"perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically—to those who hardly think about us in return." —the once and future king, t.h. white

"be kind to little animals, whatever sort they be, and give a stranded jellyfish a shove into the sea." —anonymous

"it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." —aristotle

"when the debate is over, slander becomes the tool of the loser." —socrates

"knowledge is power; the more i know about you, the more power i have over you." —uberführer

"when the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said: 'at least the handle is one of us.'" —turkish proverb

"the pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." —william arthur ward

"how terrible it is to love something that death can touch."

"nature is neither kind nor cruel, but indifferent." —richard dawkins

"nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die." —haiku by matsuo basho

"dicks and vaginas are sorta like coke and pepsi, you know? ah, i strongly prefer one, but my dad thinks they both taste the same." —bo burnham

"if i had my way we’d sleep every night all wrapped around each other like hibernating rattlesnakes." —william s. burroughs

"if you don't know what an extrovert is thinking, you haven't been listening. if you don't know what an introvert is thinking, you haven't asked." —jack falt

"shouldn't we be against procreation at this point in time? with overpopulation and the strain on the resources on this planet? shouldn't we reward people who don't spawn?" —bill maher

"if you want to get laid, go to college. if you want an education, go to the library." —frank zappa

"hunting is not a sport. in a sport, both sides should know they're in the game." —paul rodriguez

"think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourself the sight." —albert schweitzer

"the problem with defending the purity of the english language is that english is about as pure as a crib-house whore. we don't just borrow words; on occasion, english has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary." —james nicoll

"a bone to the dog is not charity. charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog." —jack london

"copper, you're my very best friend." "and you're mine, too, tod." "and we'll always be friends forever, won't we?" "yeah, forever."

"the grasshopper that was eaten by the hornbill must have been deaf." —african proverb

"if a person doesn’t have a sense of achievement in their real life, it’s easy to lose themselves in a virtual world where they can get a false sense of accomplishment." —leonard hofstadter, the big bang theory

"i suppose i love this life, in spite of my clenched fist."

"i am in that temper that if i were under water, i would scarcely kick to come to the top." —john keats

"i'd agree with you, but then we'd both be wrong."

“the greatest tragedy of the family is the unlived lives of the parents.” —carl jung

"sometimes i look at my hands and realize i could have been a great pianist." —pulp

"it is very sad to me that some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don’t care if that mark is a scar." —john green

"perhaps, when a man has special knowledge and special powers like my own, it rather encourages him to seek a complex explanation when a simpler one is at hand." —sherlock holmes, arthur conan doyle

“we lie under the network of arching shells and live in a suspense of uncertainty. if a shot comes, we can duck, that is all; we neither know nor can determine where it will fall.” —all quiet on the western front, erich maria remarque

"all the world will be your enemy, prince with a thousand enemies. and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. but first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed." —watership down, richard adams

"let me tell you this: if you meet a loner, no matter what they tell you, it’s not because they enjoy solitude. it’s because they tried to blend into the world before, and people continue to disappoint them.” —my sister’s keeper, jodi picoult

"nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even a death by violence. changed, i headed back through the mud. i was drenched; anybody could see it was time to come in out of the rain." —a separate peace, john knowles

“what do you fear, lady?” aragorn asked. “a cage,” eowyn said. “to stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.” —the two towers, j.r.r. tolkien

"you'll meet her, she's very pretty, even though she's sad for many days at a time. you'll see, when she smiles, you'll love her." —pan's labyrinth, guillermo del toro

"don't cry. if you have become human enough to cry, than all the magic in the world cannot change you back." —the last unicorn, peter s. beagle

"i was hiding under your porch because i love you." —dug, up

"the best thing for being sad," replied merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. that is the only thing that never fails. you may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. there is only one thing for it then—to learn. learn why the world wags and what wags it. that is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. learning is the thing for you. look at what a lot of things there are to learn—pure science, the only purity there is. you can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. and then, after you have exhausted a milliard lifetimes in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics—why, you can start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learningf to begin to beat your adversary at fencing. after that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to play." —the once and future king, by t.h. white

"i am so clever that sometimes i don't understand a single word of what i am saying." —oscar wilde

“time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.” —berlioz

"whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect." —mark twain

"just because you’re offended doesn’t mean you’re in the right." —ricky gervais

"don't worry what people think, they don't do it very often."

"when i am working on a problem i never think about beauty. i only think about how to solve the problem. but when i have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, i know it is wrong." —richard buckminster fuller

"expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting a bull not to charge you because you are a vegetarian." —dennis whole

"anger always comes from frustrated expectations.” —elliott larson

“animals are such agreeable friends — they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.” —george eliot

"never judge a book by its movie."

"have you so little misery that you must create more?"

"different folks, different strokes." —mysterious skin

"fuck interests, i want purpose."

abbey sent an invitation using northwest trail: dont be a playa hata join my wagon we pimp out da wheels with our premium cherry wood you dig it

"he's a gay black jew named hymen."

"i'd keira her knightley."

"velma, where's daphne?" —some kid to my mother during a halloween party

look.at.all.the.pretty.horses.running.to.their.deaths

"pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. not even when i'm a hundred." pooh thought for a little. "how old shall i be then?" "ninety-nine." pooh nodded. "i promise," he said.

"i want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. he won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country." —george s. patton

"a father is a guy who has snapshots in his wallet where his money used to be." —anonymous

“if you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don’t show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. if you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them and know more than they do.” —henry rollins

“my gender isn’t complex. it only becomes complex when i try to explain it in terms of the binary.”

“as wonderful as charity is, that money runs out. it’s not sustainable. it lasts for a certain period of time and it’s gone. what i really think people need is the opportunity to help themselves.” —emma watson

“dogs’ lives are too short. their only fault, really.” —agnes sligh turnbull

"you don't always get the dog you want, but you get the dog that you need." —cesar millan, the dog whisperer

“i find nothing more depressing than optimism.” —paul fussell

“on a stop light, green means go, red means stop, and yellow means slow down. but on a banana, it’s just the opposite: green means ‘hold on’, yellow means ‘go ahead’, and red means ‘where the fuck did you get that banana at?’” —mitch hedberg

"happiness in intelligence is the rarest thing i know." —ernest hemingway

"a smooth sea never made a skillful sailor." —unknown

"the camera does not add ten pounds. it adds recognition to the fact that you're an unattractive human being." —anonymous

"i hate intolerant people, and i hate people with too much tolerance. one is full of ignorance, the other is full of shit." —johnny knoxville

"harry potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity.. twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." —andrew futral

"i do not fear death. i had been dead for billions and billions of years before i was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." —mark twain

"when one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. when many people suffer from a delusion, it is called religion." —robert pirsig

"animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that." —ronnie snow

"the world holds two classes of men — intelligent men without religion, and religious men without intelligence." —abu ala al-ma'arri

"lighthouses are more helpful than churches." —benjamin franklin

"the only church that illuminates is one that is burning." —buenaventura durruti

"give a man a fish, he'll eat it and fall asleep. teach a man to fish, he'll endanger entire species." —jerm ix

“give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime; give a man religion and he will die praying for a fish.” —unknown

"no matter how inoffensive your godless billboard is, they will always be offended that some people out there don’t believe in their crazy bullshit." —thegoodatheist.net

"i'm an atheist, so i don't call it praying. i call it 'whispering into the abyss'."

“some atheists say arguing with believers is wasting time, but i quite like it. it reminds me of how smart i am.” —miles oliver abbott

“there is not enough love and kindness in the world to give any of it away to imaginary beings.” —friederich nietzsche

“it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” —carl sagan

“be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.” —richard dawkins

"i don’t mind most religious people. i talk to them. you know, i listen to them banging on.. 'i prayed very hard and then the fairy came.' did he? good. have a biscuit. i only get annoyed when they try and make me see the fairy. 'you have to let the fairy into your heart.' look, i wouldn’t let him into my garden. i’d shoot him on sight, if he existed, which he doesn’t. now have another bicky and be quiet, please." —dylan moran

“the inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignorance of him who reads.” —robert g. ingersoll

“well, i believe that there’s somebody out there who watches over us. unfortunately, it’s the government.” —woody allen

"when i was a kid, i used to pray every night for a new bike. then i realized that 'the lord' doesn’t work that way, so i stole one and asked him to forgive me."

"i think the trouble with being a critical thinker or an atheist or a humanist is that you’re right. and it’s quite hard being right in the face of people who are wrong without sounding like a fuckwit. people go, 'do you think the vast majority of the world is wrong?' well, yes. i don’t know how to say that nicely, but yes.” —tim minchin

"to most christians, the bible is like a software license. nobody actually reads it. they just scroll to the bottom and click 'i agree'." —twitter.com/#!/almightygod

“gods are children’s blankets that get carried over into adulthood.” —james randi

“two hands working can do more than a thousand clasped in prayer.” —unknown

“truth does not demand belief. scientists do not join hands every sunday, singing, ‘yes, gravity is real! i will have faith! i will be strong! i believe in my heart that what goes up, up, up must come down, down, down. amen!’ if they did, we would think they were pretty insecure about it.” —dan barker

"religion: comforting people in a world torn apart by religion." —jon stewart

“the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.” —delos b. mckown

"many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings." —george orwell

“on monday, oprah winfrey and sarah palin will sit down and they’re going to talk for an entire hour. and i was thinking, too bad john mccain didn’t do that with her before he chose her as his running mate." —david letterman, the late show

"the place where optimism flourishes most is the lunatic asylum." —havelock ellis

"it is not necessary for the public to know whether i am joking or whether i am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.” — diary of a genius, salvador dalí

"and that's the thing about people who mean everything they say — they think everyone else does, too."

"sweatpants are a sign of defeat. you lost control of your life, so you bought some sweatpants.” —karl lagerfeld

"everyone is a genius. but if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." —a einstein

"all decent people, male and female, are feminists. the only people who are not feminists are those who believe that women are inherently inferior or undeserving of the respect and opportunity afforded men." —ani difranco

"i want to make people cry even when they don’t understand my words." —edith piaf

"a creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others." —ayn rand

“twilight’s like soccer. they run around for two hours, nobody scores, and its billion fans insist you just don’t understand.”

“if you’re not getting happier as you grow older, you’re fucking up.” —ani difranco

"i leave females in my sheets and all my feelings in a rubber"

"you can only hold a smile for so long. after that, it's just teeth."

"so avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. a man is not very tired, he is exhausted. don’t use very sad, use morose. language was invented for one reason, boys — to woo women — and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. it also won’t do in your essays.” —dead poets society (1989), tom schulman

"are you from the internet? because you look like a waste of time."

"some days you wake up and immediately start to worry. nothing in particular is wrong, it's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble."

"there are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls." —george carlin

"if it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then i'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little." —george carlin

“the reason i talk to myself is because i’m the only one whose answers i accept.” —george carlin

"people who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think." —george carlin

"we live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." —carl sagan

"when we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness." —vincent starrett

"books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." —charles w. eliot

"once you learn how to read, you will be forever free." —frederick douglass

"..if you go home with somebody and they don't have books, don't fuck them." —john waters

"you get a little moody sometimes, but i think that's because you like to read. people that like to read are always a little fucked up." —pat conroy

"i love books. i like that the moment you open one and sink into it, you can escape from the world into a story that's way more interesting than yours will ever be."

"i suppose doing things you hate is the price you pay to avoid loneliness." —mark corrigan

"for lonely people, rain is a chance to be touched." —simon van booy

"lonely people are always up in the middle of the night." —nicole krauss

"we're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion, for only a moment, that we are not alone." —orson wells

"when you get to know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. you begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. you see only the essence of the person, not the shell. that's why you can't fall in love with beauty or looks. you can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. you can love it with your eyes and your body, but not your heart. that's why when you really connect with a person, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant."

"the stranger might laugh and seem to enjoy the writing, but you hug to yourself the thought that they didn’t quite understand its force and quality the way you do — just as your friends (thank heavens) don’t also fall in love with the person you are going on and on about to them.” —stephen fry

"a wise traveler never despises his own country." —goldoni

“travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” —mark twain

"life begins at the end of your comfort zone." —neale donald walsch

“you can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” —christopher columbus

"young musicians like bieber should actually do drugs so that way they'd overdose and the world would be spared their awful music." —russell brand

"animation isn’t just for kids; it’s for adults who take drugs." —paul mccartney

"biologically, there is no such thing as race."

"haircuts don’t have genders. they’re haircuts." —genderfork

"you'll never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

“money frees you from doing things you dislike. since i dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.” —groucho marx

"i arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. this makes it hard to plan the day." —e.b. white

“i live my own life and nurse my own wounds. it’s not the best way to live. but it’s the way i am.” —middlesex, jeffrey eugenides

"many human beings say that they enjoy the winter, but what they really enjoy is feeling proof against it." —watership down, richard adams

"a person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person." —the unbearable lightness of being, milan kundera

"to be honest, i don’t fucking care. i didn’t get into this to be a role model. so i’m sorry if i’m influencing your kids in a way that you don’t like, but i can’t be responsible for their actions. i don’t care." —taylor momsen

"i have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others." —marcus aurelius

"i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night." —galileo galilei

"happiness only real when shared." —christopher mccandless, into the wild

"how can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being?" —oscar wilde

"you guys are so obsessed with sports, you wear jerseys for teams you're not even on. but you think you're on the team, you'll be like, 'yeah, last night we just didn't score enough. we just didn't play enough defense.' we? the lakers don't need you." —whitney cummings

"insult her. if she's a tramp, she'll get angry; if a lady, she'll smile."

“there is a wolf in me.. i keep the wolf because the wilderness gave it to me, and the wilderness will not let it go.” —carl sandburg

“the only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. they are incurious. incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.” —stephen fry

"what is that you express in your eyes? it seems to me more than all the printi have read in my life." —walt whitman

“it’s too bad that stupidity isn’t painful.” —anton szandor lavey

"you are a little soul carrying around a corpse." —epictetus

"the sun, the moon and the star would have disappeared long ago, had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands." —havelock ellis

“if someone were to harm my family or a friend or somebody i love, i would eat them. i might end up in jail for 500 years, but i would eat them.” —johnny depp

"the term ‘serious actor’ is kind of an oxymoron, isn’t it? like 'republican party' or 'airplane food.'" —johnny depp

"nothing is original. steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. if you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent. and don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it if you feel like it. in any case, always remember what jean-luc godard said: 'it’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.' ” —jim jarmusch

“you think abortion is wrong? don’t have one. i think killing people is wrong, so i’m not in the army. my tax dollars still go to fund it, though (in fact about 21 cents of each of my tax dollars). my tax dollars also go to keep prisoners on death row even though i think the death penalty is morally wrong. my tax dollars fund guantanamo and bagram, extraordinary rendition, and jim demint’s salary, all of which i find disgusting. so why is abortion, a legal medical procedure, so remarkably different that we have to go overboard making sure tax dollars don’t fund it?” —globalcomment

“there is no debate here — just scientists vs. non-scientists, and since the topic is science, the non-scientists don’t get a vote. we shouldn’t decide everything by polling the masses. just because most people believe something doesn’t make it true. this is the fallacy called argumentum ad numeram: the idea that something is true because great numbers believe it. as in: eat shit, 20 trillion flies can’t be wrong.” —bill maher, via huffpos on climate

“war does not determine who is right — only who is left.” —bertrand russell

"'i’m writing a book on magic,' i explain, and i’m asked, 'real magic?' by real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. 'no.' i answer: 'conjuring tricks, not real magic.' real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.” —lee seigel

"sure, we had to be skinny. i lived on diet coke and apples for two years. for the couture, we had to get up at 4 am to be sewn into the clothes and there was huge pressure to be thin. but i made a million dollars by the time i was 20, i bought a town house in manhattan and put myself through columbia. does that make me a victim?” —abbey lee

“travel isn’t always pretty. it isn’t always comfortable. sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. but that’s okay. the journey changes you — it should change you. it leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart and on your body. you take something with you.. hopefully, you leave something good behind.” —anthony bourdain

"i’ve always liked the feeling of traveling light; there is something in me that wants to feel i could leave wherever i am, at any time, without any effort. the idea of being weighed down made me uneasy, as if i lived on the surface of a frozen lake and each new trapping of domestic life - a pot, a chair, a lamp - threatened to be the thing that sent me through the ice." —nicole krauss, great house

“kids are born curious. they are always exploring. we spend the first year of their life teaching them to walk and talk, and the rest of their life telling them to shut up and sit down.” —neil degrasse tyson

"anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hard-headed realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals and county commissioners." —edward abbey

"you let the man maneuver you into thinking that it’s wrong to fight him when he’s fighting you. he’s fighting you in the morning, fighting you in the noon, fighting you at night and fighting you all in between, and you still think it’s wrong to fight him back. why?" —malcolm x

“don’t attach yourself to anyone who shows you the least bit of attention because you’re lonely. loneliness is the human condition. no one is ever going to fill that space. the best you can do is know yourself.. know what you want.” —white oleander

“rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention, always watch your back, always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.” —shakesville: rape culture 101

"it wasn't until the mid-19th century that the whole practice of getting married for love came into being.. the mass market of romance happened in america. so it all happened around the same time. a time that has to do with the industrial revolution and the invention of the middle class. and the fact that people had the luxury to be able to choose partners on the basis of love instead of on pragmatism. so it seems like you could sort of say romance was invented in the middle of the 19th century." —elizabeth gilbert

“the so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. and surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. the person in whom its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. the variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. it’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flame yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘don‘t!’ and ‘hang on!’, can understand the jump. not really. you’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling." —david foster wallace

"leave an extrovert alone for two minutes and he will reach for his cell phone. in contrast, after an hour or two of being socially ‘on,’ we introverts need to turn off and recharge. my own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. this isn’t antisocial. it isn’t a sign of depression. it does not call for medication. for introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. our motto: ‘i’m okay, you’re okay—in small doses.’" —jonathan rauch

"there are so many things that trouble me about the obsession with regulating women’s bodies. but as a man, i am particularly exasperated at the assumption that lies beneath the insistence on modesty: the myth that men cannot control themselves. as feminists often point out, the real “man-haters” are those who promote modest dress for women out of the belief that men lack self-control. there is nothing more contemptuous than the suggestion that those of us with penises and Y chromosomes are prisoners of our biology, liable to rape or commit infidelity at the first sign of cleavage. the myth of male weakness sells us woefully, heartbreakingly short.” —standing with the sluts

"nobody tells this to people who are beginners, i wish someone told me. all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. but there is this gap. for the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. it’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. but your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. and your taste is why your work disappoints you. a lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. most people i know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. we know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. we all go through this. and if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. it is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. and i took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone i’ve ever met. it’s gonna take awhile. it’s normal to take awhile. you’ve just gotta fight your way through." —ira glass

"but i have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. a rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself." —watership down, richard adams

"i don’t care what anybody says, chuckie! nakey is good! nakey is free! nakey is.. nakey!" —rugrats

"but some people without brains do a lot of talking, don't they?" —the wizard of oz, scarecrow

"go see a psychiatrist - i hate the psychiatrist - well go see one anyway - i don’t like the psychiatrist - you need to go see one - see a psychiatrist - i’m not going.." —forgetting sarah marshall, jason segel

"i do not have the talent of conversing easily with people i have never met before." —pride and prejudice, jane austen

“it is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. we all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. and yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. it is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.” — lemony snicket's a series of unfortunate events, brad silberling

"if there's tomorrow when we're not together, there's something you must always remember: you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart, i'll always be with you." —winnie the pooh, a.a milne

“if you live to be 100, i hope i live to be 100 minus 1 day, so i never have to live without you.” —winnie the pooh, a.a milne

"we accept the love we think we deserve." —the perks of being a wallflowers, stephen chbosky

"do you like my hat?" "why yes, i like your hat!" —go, dog. go!

"float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

"wild animals never kill for sport. man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself." —james a. froude

"i ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. they always say because it's such a beautiful animal. there you go. i think my mother is attractive, but i have photographs of her." —ellen degeneres

"we can not have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. by every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing we set back the progress of humanity." —rachel carson

"true benevolence or compassion extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation." —joseph addison

"the time will come when men such as i will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men." —leonardo da vinci

"ever occur to you why some of us can be this much concerned with animals suffering? because government is not. why not? animals don't vote." —paul harvey

"the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." —mohandas gandhi

"teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child, as it is to the caterpillar." —bradley miller

"the question is not, "can they reason?" nor, "can they talk?" but rather, "can they suffer?" —jeremy bentham

"killing animals for sport, for pleasure, for adventure, and for hides and furs is a phenomena which is at once disgusting and distressing. there is no justification in indulging is such acts of brutality." —the dalai lama

"there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties.. the lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery." —charles darwin

"when a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity." —george bernard shaw

"the animals of the world exist for their own reasons. they were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." —alice walker

"the animals of the planet are in desperate peril and they are fully aware of this. no less than human beings are doing in all parts of the world, they are seeking sanctuary." —alice walker

"there can be no justification for causing suffering to animals simply to serve man's pleasure or simply to enhance man's lifestyle. —the dean of york

"the squirrel that you kill in jest, dies in earnest." —henry david

"i was so moved by the intelligence, sense of fun and personalities of the animals i worked with on babe that by the end of the film i was a vegetarian." —james cromwell

"non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." —thomas edison

"it's sad. that's a living creature. we don't have the right to take their life away for fashion." —carmen electra

"if you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured, then you shouldn't condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not." —moby

"it is not THIS bloodshed, or THAT bloodshed, that must cease; but ALL bloodshed—all wanton infliction of pain or death." —henry salt

"as long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. slaughter and justice cannot dwell together." —isaac bashevis singer

"it is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned english — up to fifty words used in correct context — no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.” —carl sagan

"death sits in the chair across from me and watches. death sees but has no eyes. death knows but has no mind.

we often sit together in the night. death has one move left. i have none."

"here, in the forest, dark and deep, i offer you, eternal sleep." —the poor little rich girl

"within my heart is another heart, within that heart, a man at war writes home: this is like digging a hole in the rain." —bob hicok

"modern life is so thin and shallow and fake. i look forward to when developers go bankrupt, japan gets poorer and wild grasses take over." —hayao miyazaki

"what to do if you find yourself stuck in a crack in the ground underneath a giant boulder you can’t move, with no hope of rescue? consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. alternatively, if life hasn’t been good to you so far, which given your current circumstances seems more likely, consider how lucky you are that it won’t be troubling you much longer.” —douglas adams

"do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. but after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” —the buddha

“i wish someone would just start "fly at your own risk airlines". how ‘bout that? you can have your hair gel, you can have your lighter, you can have a fucking gun. how about that? you can show up at the gate five minutes before the plane leaves, and pay in cash, like in the good ol’ 1980’s. the ticket just says “shit happens” on the back, because that’s the way it is anyway.” —bill maher

“darwin matters because evolution matters. evolution matters because science matters. science matters because it is the preeminent story of our age, an epic saga of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.” —michael shermer

“suggesting that women have abortions for “convenience” diminishes the hard work of women and is beyond insulting. living my dream is my right. not having my body hijacked, especially when i am doing everything possible to prevent pregnancy, is my right. i refuse to be told that my dreams are inconvenient and should be sacrificed.” —abortion gang, inconvenient dreams

“do you want to know why i use a knife? guns are too quick. you can’t savor all the.. little emotions. in.. you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. so in a way, i know your friends better than you ever did.” —the dark knight (2008)

“how can you say you love one person when there are ten thousand people in the world that you would love more if you ever met them? but you’ll never meet them. all right, so we do the best we can. granted. but we must still realize that love is just the result of a chance encounter.” —bukowski

"there’s so many wars going on, you could rename this town WAR-shington. money for bombs, no money for books. money for missiles, no money for new moms. money for jet fighters, no money for crime fighters. money for an empire that is as broad as our fears, no money for an america that’s as large as our hopes. just money for unnecessary wars.

we don’t want apocalypse now, we want peace, now. we want jobs, now. we want prosperity, now. and we want the leadership to provide it. now.” rep. dennis kucinich, speaking on the US house floor april 6th, 2011 and dropping some serious truth bombs regarding what’s killing our budget."

"at one time or another i have insulted everybody, and i am proud of that. folks, let me sum it up for you: i think religion is bad, and drugs are good. i think america causes cancer, longevity is less important than fun and young people should be discouraged from voting. i think stereotypes are true, abstinence is a pervsion, bush’s lies are worse than clinton’s and there is nothing sexy about being old or pregnant. i think 9-11 changed nothing, and if i had known the onset of war would add a hundred points on to bush’s IQ, i would have started one. i think pornography stops rape, i think AIDS ribbons are stupid, and flag burning makes me feel patriotic. i think death is not the worst thing that can happen. i think people have too much self-esteem, and being drunk is funny. i think children are not innocent, god doesn’t write books, and jesus wasn’t a republican. i am for mad cow disease, and against suing tobacco companies. i think girls hate each other, no doesn’t always mean no, you have to lie to stay married, women’s sports are boring, and the olympics are gay. we’ll be on for another six weeks here on ABC..” —bill maher

“saying ‘i notice you’re a nerd’ is like saying, ‘hey, i notice that you’d rather be intelligent than be stupid, that you’d rather be thoughtful than be vapid, that you believe that there are things that matter more than the arrest record of lindsay lohan. why is that?’ in fact, it seems to me that most contemporary insults are pretty lame. even ‘lame’ is kind of lame. saying ‘you’re lame’ is like saying ‘you walk with a limp.’ yeah, whatever, so does 50 Cent, and he’s done all right for himself.” —john green

"fear believes - courage doubts. fear falls upon the earth and prays - courage stands erect and thinks. fear retreats - courage advances. fear is barbarism - courage is civilization. fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. fear is religion, courage is science.” —robert g. ingersoll

"someone i loved once gave me a box full of darkness. it took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift." —mary oliver

"all parents damage their children. it cannot be helped. youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair." —mitch albom

"i read somewhere that when you’re a kid it’s people’s cruelty that makes you cry, then when you’re an adult it’s their kindness." —glen duncan

"sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best thing would to have never been born at all." —heinrich heine

"of course, there’s a lot of misery. but it is the same misery that is all around us. the trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. i don’t think they sing. they just screech in pain." —werner herzog

"if you will die for me, i will die for you and our graves will be like two lovers washing their clothes together in a laundromat. if you will bring the soap, i will bring the bleach." —richard brautigan

"dare i say i miss him? i do. i miss him. i still see him in my dreams. they are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. such is the strangeness of the human heart." —yann martel

"perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing." —sylvia plath

"be the person your dog thinks you are."

"in the desert i saw a creature, naked, bestial, who, squatting upon the ground, held his heart in his hands, and ate of it. i said, ‘is it good, friend?’ 'it is bitter — bitter,’ he answered; 'but i like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart." — in the desert, stephen crane

"if i never see you again i will always carry you inside outside on my fingertips and at brain edges and in centers centers of what i am of what remains." —charles bukowski

"courage doesn't always roar. sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'i will try again tomorrow.'"

"i've found that the saddest people are also the funniest, and only those who understand complexity can communicate simplicity."

"i regret that it takes a life to learn how to live." —jonathan safran foer

"you can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at." —tina fey

"the quieter you become, the more you can hear." —unknown

"seduce my mind and you can have my body." —anonymous

"i actually attack the concept of happiness. the idea that - i don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in western society, which is fear of sadness. it’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying ‘write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep’, and ‘cheer up’ and ‘happiness is our birthright’ and so on. we’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say ‘quick! move on! xheer up!’ i’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word ‘happiness’ and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. ask yourself, ‘is this contributing to my wholeness?’ and if you’re having a bad day, it is." —hugh mackay

"all relationships are doomed. if you emotionally undress infront of someone, they will pour acid on your shivering skin and leave you to die." —howard, fresh meat

"it is a distortion of the notion of romantic love to want to see obedience as the quintessential expression of respect." —bell hooks

"power is being told you are not loved and not being destroyed by it." —madonna

"of course you're entitled to your opinion, there's no law against being wrong."

"be silent - or say something better than silence." —pythagoras

"i have three things i’d like to say today. first, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. second, most of you don’t give a shit. what’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that i said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night." —tony campolo

"forever is a long, long time, and time has a way of changing things." —the fox and the hound

"if you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it." —zora neale hurston

"we are drowning in information but starved for knowledge."

"i don’t ask you to love me always like this, but i ask you to remember. somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person i am tonight." —f. scott fitzgerald

"i don’t want the heavens or the shooting stars. i don’t want gemstones or gold. i have those things already. i want a steady hand, a kind soul. i want to fall asleep, and wake, knowing my heart is safe." —shana abé

"sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence." —david byrne

"when we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves." —chuck palahniuk

"the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." —bertrand russell

"i envy you. every moment. you can leave me. i cannot leave myself." —anna swirszczyńska

"i tried to drown my sorrows, but the bastards learned how to swim." —frida kahlo

"if you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly." —david hackworth

"all opinions are not equal. some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others."

"sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.”

"but collective thinking is usually short-lived. we're fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction." —suzanne collin

"if you dedicate your existence to being likable, however, and if you adopt whatever cool persona is necessary to make it happen, it suggests that you’ve despaired of being loved for who you really are. and if you succeed in manipulating other people into liking you, it will be hard not to feel, at some level, contempt for those people, because they’ve fallen for your shtick." —jonathan franzen

"and once the storm is over you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. you won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. but one thing is certain. when you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. that’s what this storm’s all about." —haruki murakami

"eventually something you love is going to be taken away. and then you will fall to the floor crying. and then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, 'I am falling to the floor crying,' but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well. " —richard siken

"here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy." —charlaine harris

"never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart." —charles dickens

“literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.” —fernando pessoa

"that's how depression hits - you wake up one morning afraid that you're going to live."

"when you’re smitten, romance is a thrilling high-wire act over a looming lake of woe. your head’s full of music; the first few steps are a joyful scamper. then the skies darken, the breeze picks up, the tightrope shudders and you fight to retain your balance. in your heart of hearts, you know you’re heading for a tumble, but you’re out and exposed and there’s no turning back — and who knows, maybe you’ll make it? imbecile. of course you won’t. instead, the rope snaps and suddenly you’re plunged back into the monochrome workaday reality of flowers in the dustbin and dogs being sick on the pavement." —charlie brooker

"the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." —flannery o’connor

"the most important things are the hardest to say. they are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. but it’s more than that, isn’t it? the most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. and you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. that’s the worst, i think. when the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear." —stephen king

"memories were fine but you couldn’t touch them, smell them or hold them. they were never exactly as the moment was, and they faded with time." —cecelia ahern

"i felt like crying but nothing came out. it was just a sort of sad sickness, sick sad, when you can’t feel any worse. i think you know it. i think everybody knows it now and then. but i think i have known it pretty often, too often." —charles bukowski

"there is a kind of crying i hope you have not experienced, and it is not just crying about something terrible that has happened, but a crying for all of the terrible things that have happened, not just to you but to everyone you know and to everyone you don’t know and even the people you don’t want to know, a crying that cannot be diluted by a brave deed or a kind word, but only by someone holding you as your shoulders shake and your tears run down your face." —lemony snicket

"usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. 'i’m okay,' we say. 'i’m alright'. but sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can’t get it off. that’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even an answer—it’s a question. even now, i wonder how much of my life is convinced." —markus zusak

"anxiety is love’s greatest killer. it makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. you want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic." —anaïs nin

"in nature there are neither rewards nor punishments—there are consequences." —robert g. ingersoll

“i was in the bath at the time, and my dad came running in and said, ‘guess who they want to play harry potter!?’ and i started to cry. it was probably the best moment of my life.” —daniel radcliffe

“this kiss between hermione and ron is highly anticipated, it’s been building up for eight films now. and harry potter is not twilight, you know; we’re not selling sex.” —emma watson

"why are they all staring?" demanded albus, as he and rose craned around to look at the other students. "don't let it worry you," said ron. "it's me. i'm extremely famous." —harry potter and the deathly hallows