the stranger:

• “After another moment's silence she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might disgust her for the very same reason.”

the last question:

• “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”

the secret life of walter mitty:

• 'I was thinking," said Walter Mitty. "Does it ever occur to you that I am sometimes thinking?" She looked at him. "I'm going to take your temperature when I get you home," she said.

the unicorn in the garden:

• "Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.“

there will come soft rains:

• "And one voice, with sublime disregard for the situation, read poetry aloud in the fiery study, until all the film spools burned, until all the wires withered and the circuits cracked."

they're made out of meat:

• "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"

the death of the moth:

• when there was nobody to care or to know, this gigantic effort on the part of an insignificant little moth, against a power of such magnitude, to retain what no one else valued or desired to keep, moved one strangely."

the million year picnic:

• "The Martians were there--in the canal--reflected in the water. Timothy and Michael and Robert and Mom and Dad. The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water. . . ."

wishful drinking:

• "Resentment is like drinking a poison and waiting for the other person to die"

flowers for algernon:

• P.P.S. Please if you get a chanse put some flowrs on Algernons grave in the bak yard ..."

the lottery:

• “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her.

lamb to the slaughter:

• "And in the other room, Mary Maloney began to laugh."

a man without a country:

• “And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.”

talking to strangers:

• “If suicide is coupled, then it isn’t simply the act of depressed people. It’s the act of depressed people at a particular moment of extreme vulnerability and in combination with a particular, readily available lethal means.”

the monkeys paw:

• “It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the Sergeant-Major, “a very holy man. He wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who tried to change it would be sorry. He put a spell on it so that three different men could each have three wishes from it.”

why not me:

• “Work hard, know your shit, show your shit, and then feel entitled. Listen to no one except the two smartest and kindest adults you know, and that doesn't always mean your parents. If you do that, you will be fine.”
• “People get scared when you try to do something, especially when it looks like you're succeeding. People do not get scared when you're failing. It calms them. But when you're winning, it makes them feel like they're losing or, worse yet, that maybe they should've tried to do something too, but now it's too late. And since they didn't, they want to stop you. You can't let them.”
• “People talk about confidence without ever bringing up hard work. That’s a mistake. I know I sound like some dour older spinster on Downton Abbey who has never felt a man’s touch and whose heart has turned to stone, but I don’t understand how you could have self-confidence if you don’t do the work... I have never, ever, ever, met a high confident person and successful person who is not what a movie would call a 'workaholic.' Because confidence is like respect; you have to earn it.”
• “Confidence is just entitlement. Entitlement has gotten a bad rap because it's used almost exclusively for the useless children of the rich, reality TV stars, and Conrad Hilton Jr., who gets kicked off an airplane for smoking pot in the lavatory and calling people peasants or whatever. But entitlement in and of itself isn't so bad. Entitlement is simply the belief that you deserve something. Which is great. The hard part is, you'd better make sure you deserve it.”

the gift of the magi:

• "And here I have told you the story of two children who were not wise. Each sold the most valuable thing he owned in order to buy a gift for the other."

hills like white elephants:

• 'They look like white elephants,' she said.
• "Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?"

the old man and the sea:

• 'It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.'
• 'Perhaps it was a sin to kill the fish. I suppose it was even though I did it to keep me alive and feed manypeople. But then everything is a sin. Do not think about sin. It is much too late for that and there are people who are paid to do it. Let them think about it.'
• 'You did not kill the fish only to keep alive and to sell for food, he thought. You killed him for pride and because you are a fisherman. You loved him when he was alive and you loved him after. If you love him, it is not a sin to kill him. Or is it more?'

sk - 11.22.63:

• “If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. I'll love your face no matter what it looks like. Because it's yours.”
• 'The past is obdurate.'
• 'We did not ask for this room or this music. But because we are here, let us dance.'

circe:

• 'This was how mortals found game, I thought. Through practice and diligence, tending their skills like gardens until they glowed beneath the sun. But gods are born of ichor and nectar, their excellences already bursting from their fingertips. So they find their fame proving what they can mar: destroying cities, starting wars, breeding plagues and monsters.' - Madelline Miller