Nietzsche

• 'My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.' - Ecce Homo
• 'When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.'

Socrates

• 'The unexamined life is not worth living.'

'Special Topics In Calamity Physics' (Marisha Pessl)

• 'Those around you can have their novellas, sweet, their short stories of cliché and coincidence, occasionally spiced up with tricks of the quirky, the achingly mundane, the grotesque. A few will even cook up Greek tragedy, those born into misery, destined to die in misery. But you, my bride of quietness, you will craft nothing less than epic with your life. Out of all of them, your story will be the one to last.'

Oscar Wilde

• 'You don't love someone for their looks, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.'
• 'You can never be overdressed or overeducated.'

Sylvia Plath

• 'Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.'

Jon McGregor

• 'You must always look with both of your eyes and listen with both of your ears. He says this is a very big world and there are many many things you could miss if you are not careful. There are remarkable things all the time, right in front of us, but our eyes have like the clouds over the sun and our lives are paler and poorer if we do not see them for what they are. If nobody speaks of remarkable things, how can they be called remarkable?'

'The Secret History' (Donna Tartt)