β
You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
β
β
Dr. Seuss
β
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
β
β
Oscar Wilde
β
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
β
β
H. Jackson Brown Jr. (P.S. I Love You)
β
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)
β
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
β
β
Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)
β
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...
β
β
Dr. Seuss (Oh, the Places Youβll Go!)
β
Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Harry Potter, #7))
β
If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.
β
β
Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets)
β
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.
β
β
Albert Einstein
β
The real lover is the man who can thrill you by kissing your forehead or smiling into your eyes or just staring into space.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
You donβt forget the face of the person who was your last hope.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
β
What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though.
β
β
J.D. Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye)
β
What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.
β
β
Maya Angelou (Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now)
β
I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
You can't live your life for other people. You've got to do what's right for you, even if it hurts some people you love.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook (The Notebook, #1))
β
If you're gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources
β
β
C.E.M. Joad
β
Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.
β
β
George R.R. Martin (A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1))
β
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
Is this the part where you start tearing off strips of your shirt to bind my wounds?"
"If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should have just asked.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1))
β
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you.
β
β
Rita Mae Brown
β
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
β
β
Ralph Waldo Emerson
β
Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.
β
β
Virginia Woolf (A Room of Oneβs Own)
β
Becoming fearless isn't the point. That's impossible. It's learning how to control your fear, and how to be free from it.
β
β
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
β
Never love anyone who treats you like you're ordinary.
β
β
Oscar Wilde
β
If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there
β
β
George Harrison
β
Do what you feel in your heart to be right β for youβll be criticized anyway.
β
β
Eleanor Roosevelt
β
This lifeβs hard, but itβs harder if youβre stupid.
β
β
George V. Higgins (The Friends of Eddie Coyle)
β
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
β
β
Kahlil Gibran (The Prophet)
β
Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
β
β
John Lennon
β
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
β
β
Dalai Lama XIV
β
In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
β
May you live every day of your life.
β
β
Jonathan Swift
β
When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.
β
β
Groucho Marx
β
Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
β
β
Carter Crocker
β
Substitute 'damn' every time you're inclined to write 'very;' your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
β
β
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi
β
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
β
β
Mary Oliver
β
You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Rescue)
β
You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.
β
β
A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh (Winnie-the-Pooh, #1))
β
You're a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That's everyone in the family!"
"What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?
β
β
J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter, #5))
β
Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.
β
β
Lemony Snicket
β
If you're reading this...
Congratulations, you're alive.
If that's not something to smile about,
then I don't know what is.
β
β
Chad Sugg (Monsters Under Your Head)
β
Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore.
β
β
Lady Gaga
β
That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste.
β
β
John Green (Paper Towns)
β
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.
β
β
John Green
β
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
β
β
Winston S. Churchill
β
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.
β
β
Isaac Asimov (Foundation (Foundation, #1))
β
Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.
β
β
John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)
β
I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
β
β
John Lennon
β
I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, everyday we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook)
β
Take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in other peopleβs hands.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
The most important thing is to enjoy your lifeβto be happyβit's all that matters.
β
β
Audrey Hepburn
β
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no oneβs definition of your life; define yourself.
β
β
Robert Frost
β
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
β
β
C.S. Lewis (The Four Loves)
β
Accept who you are. Unless you're a serial killer.
β
β
Ellen DeGeneres (Seriously... I'm Kidding)
β
Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option.
β
β
Mark Twain
β
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books.
β
β
Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Charlie Bucket, #1))
β
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
β
β
Oprah Winfrey
β
Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
Life is too short to waste your time on people who donβt respect, appreciate, and value you.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.
β
β
Terry Pratchett (The Last Continent (Discworld, #22; Rincewind, #6))
β
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
β
β
Neil Gaiman
β
What the hell is that?" I laughed.
"It's my fox hat."
"Your fox hat?"
"Yeah, Pudge. My fox hat."
"Why are you wearing your fox hat?" I asked.
"Because no one can catch the motherfucking fox.
β
β
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
β
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche
β
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
β
β
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
β
Live the Life of Your Dreams: Be brave enough to live the life of your dreams according to your vision and purpose instead of the expectations and opinions of others.
β
β
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β
One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.
β
β
Stephen Hawking
β
I no longer believed in the idea of soul mates, or love at first sight. But I was beginning to believe that a very few times in your life, if you were lucky, you might meet someone who was exactly right for you. Not because he was perfect, or because you were, but because your combined flaws were arranged in a way that allowed two separate beings to hinge together.
β
β
Lisa Kleypas (Blue-Eyed Devil (Travises, #2))
β
My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; itβs a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.
β
β
Alan Moore
β
I didn't want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that's really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you're so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.
β
β
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
β
When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through.
β
β
Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
β
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.
β
β
James Baldwin
β
This life is what you make it. No matter what, you're going to mess up sometimes, it's a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you're going to mess it up. Girls will be your friends - they'll act like it anyway. But just remember, some come, some go. The ones that stay with you through everything - they're your true best friends. Don't let go of them. Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And baby, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soulmate. You'll never find that half who makes you whole and that goes for everything. Just because you fail once, doesn't mean you're gonna fail at everything. Keep trying, hold on, and always, always, always believe in yourself, because if you don't, then who will, sweetie? So keep your head high, keep your chin up, and most importantly, keep smiling, because life's a beautiful thing and there's so much to smile about.
β
β
Marilyn Monroe
β
You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won't mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever.... connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.
β
β
C. JoyBell C.
β
People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master...
β
β
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
β
Deep in the meadow, hidden far away
A cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray
Forget your woes and let your troubles lay
And when it's morning again, they'll wash away
Here it's safe, here it's warm
Here the daisies guard you from every harm
Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true
Here is the place where I love you.
β
β
Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
β
Malachi scowled. "I don't remember the Clave inviting you into the Glass City, Magnus Bane."
"They didn't," Magnus said. "Your wards are down."
"Really?" the Consul's voice dripped sarcasm. "I hadn't noticed."
Magnus looked concerned. "That's terrible. Someone should have told you." He glanced at Luke. "Tell him the wards are down.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youβve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you canβt wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid itβs like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didnβt exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long dayβs work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, thereβs no need for continuous conversation, but you find youβre quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that thereβs a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure thatβs so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life.
β
β
Bob Marley
β
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours.
β
β
Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)
β
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
β
β
Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles")
β
And now Iβm looking at you,β he said, βand youβre asking me if I still want you, as if I could stop loving you. As if I would want to give up the thing that makes me stronger than anything else ever has. I never dared give much of myself to anyone before β bits of myself to the Lightwoods, to Isabelle and Alec, but it took years to do it β but, Clary, since the first time I saw you, I have belonged to you completely. I still do. If you want me.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β
Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.
β
β
Leigh Bardugo (Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1))
β
To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.
β
β
Arundhati Roy (The Cost of Living)
β
Reader's Bill of Rights
1. The right to not read
2. The right to skip pages
3. The right to not finish
4. The right to reread
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to escapism
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to browse
9. The right to read out loud
10. The right to not defend your tastes
β
β
Daniel Pennac
β
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)I am never without it (anywhere
I go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)I want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
β
β
E.E. Cummings
β
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.
β
β
Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)
β
We live and breathe words. .... It was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone. They could be honest with me, and I with them. Reading your words, what you wrote, how you were lonely sometimes and afraid, but always brave; the way you saw the world, its colors and textures and sounds, I felt--I felt the way you thought, hoped, felt, dreamt. I felt I was dreaming and thinking and feeling with you. I dreamed what you dreamed, wanted what you wanted--and then I realized that truly I just wanted you.
β
β
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
β
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge youβll never walk alone.
...
We leave you a tradition with a future.
The tender loving care of human beings will never become obsolete.
People even more than things have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed and redeemed and redeemed.
Never throw out anybody.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, youβll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands: one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
Your βgood old daysβ are still ahead of you, may you have many of them.
β
β
Sam Levenson (In One Era & Out the Other)
β
If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives and maybe even your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery--isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance, of how much you really want to do it. And, you'll do it, despite rejection and the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.
β
β
Charles Bukowski (What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire)
β
Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
β
β
Christian D. Larson (Your Forces and How to Use Them)
β
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
β
β
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones)
β
THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings.
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with you in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.
TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL
1. You will use algebra in your adult lives.
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away.
3. Students must stay on campus during lunch.
4. The new text books will arrive any day now.
5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores.
6. We are enforcing the dress code.
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon.
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals.
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school.
10. We want to hear what you have to say.
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Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak)
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You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. Youβll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. Sheβs the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? Thatβs the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.
Sheβs the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because sheβs kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the authorβs making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyceβs Ulysses sheβs just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
Itβs easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, sheβs going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. Sheβll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time sheβs sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasnβt burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then youβre better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
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Rosemarie Urquico
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I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.
I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.
I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.
I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.
I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.
I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.
I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.
I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.
I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.
I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.
I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
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Neil Gaiman (American Gods (American Gods, #1))