We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and -- in spite of True Romance magazines -- we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely -- at least, not all the time -- but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness."
— Hunter S. Thompson

"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite." - Nelson Mandela

"There's always going to be bad stuff out there. But here's the amazing thing -- light trumps darkness, every time. You stick a candle into the dark, but you can't stick the dark into the light." "-Jodi Picoult

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. -- Anne Frank

There once was an owl who sat in an oak, the more it heard, the less it spoke... the less it spoke, the more it heard. -- Gentlehawk

Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down. -- Oprah Winfrey

"There are some places that I can't go. As a woman I can't go there, and as a person I don't care. I don't go for the 'Hey baby, what's your name?' And I'd like to go alone, thank you, just the same." ~ The Story by Ani Difranco

"We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together." ~ Deb Caletti

"I am a jumble of passions, misgivings, and wants. It seems that I am always in a state of wishing and rarely in a state of contentment." ~ Libba Bray

"What if evil doesn't really exist? What if evil is something dreamed up by man, and there is nothing to struggle against except out own limitations? The constant battle between our will, our desires, and our choices?" ~ Libba Bray

A wise girl kisses, but doesn't love; listens, but doesn't believe; and leaves before she is left. - Marilyn Monroe

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?"

-Dr. Seuss

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
- Douglas Adams

Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.-Alan Keightley

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much, so you plant your own garden, and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone else to bring you flowers.-Veronica A. Shoffstall

I was finally content; I knew where I was, what I was doing, everything...but then someone came along and showed me that my map was upside down, turned my world inside out, and now I'm so lost and I can't figure out what to do.-ncolie13 (on bolt)

In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.-Charlie Brown

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
— Albert Einstein

"However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?"
— Siddhārtha Gautama

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
— Mahatma Gandhi