To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. 

Oscar Wilde

The unfed mind devours itself. 

Gore Vidal

What's terrible is to pretend that second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better. 

Doris Lessing

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one. 

George R.R. Martin

I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. -Anne Frank

But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands. 

Daphne du Maurier

Look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory. 

Betty Smith

Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly. 

Cornelia Funke

“If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody.

Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” 

― Anthony Bourdain

“The way you make an omelet reveals your character.” 

― Anthony Bourdain

“That without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, moribund.” 

― Anthony Bourdain, Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook

“I lurched away from the table after a few hours feeling like Elvis in Vegas - fat, drugged, and completely out of it.” 

― Anthony Bourdain

“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom...is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go. -Anthony Bourdain” 

“your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” 

― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

“I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you.” 

― Anthony Bourdain

Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.

- Isabelle Eberhardt

It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

- Chuck Palahniuk

The truly free man is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.

- Jules Renard

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

- George Sand

My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness.

- André Breton