there are things no magic can destroy, for they are magic in themselves ...

"To the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"A heart divided against itself cannot stand, as they say. You love them both, and it tears you apart."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."
-Sarah Williams, "The Old Astronomer"

"When two people are as one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"I think when we make choices -- for each choice is individual of the choices we have made before -- we must examine not only our reasons for making them, but what result they will have, and whether good people will be hurt by our decisions."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"Life was an uncertain thing, and there were moments one wished to remember, to imprint upon one's mind that the memory might be taken out later, like a flower pressed between the pages of a book, and admired and recollected anew."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"He had always said that Will rushed toward the end of a mission rather than proceeding in a measured manner, and that one must look at the next step on the path ahead, rather than the mountain in the distance or one would never reach one's goal."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"We all have our secrets that we keep because we do not want to hurt the people who love us."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"I would tell you I hated you if I thought you would believe me, if it would make you go. I want you to live. Even if it means I shall never see you again."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"The measure of love is to love without measure."
-Saint Augustine

"There are things no magic can destroy, for they are magic in themselves."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

"I recall what you said to me once ... That words have the power to change us. Your words have changed me, Tess; they have made me a better man than I would have been otherwise. Life is a book, and there are a thousand pages I have not yet read. I would read them together with you, as many as I can, before I die."
-from Clockwork Princess (Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare

you learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before.

"Who knows? Maybe they're right. Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings. Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it. But we have chosen a different road. And in the end that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose. We are even free to choose the wrong thing."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"How can someone have the power to shatter you to dust -- and also to make you feel so whole?"
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"But even outside I feel claustrophobic. There's not place to go. There's no way to escape the crushing sense of loss, the endless exhaustion of time sawing away at the people and things that I've loved."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"This is not any kind of happiness that I imagined. It is not what I chose. But it's enough. It's more than enough."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"[He] sacrificed himself once so that I could live and be happy. Now he has done it again. I've been so stupid. And he is gone; there is no way for me to reach him and tell him I know and understand. There is no way for me to tell that I am still in love with him."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"He who jumps may fall, but he may also fly."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"Take down the walls. Otherwise you must live closely, in fear, building barricades against the unknown, saying prayers against the darkness, speaking verse of terror and tightness. Otherwise you may never know hell, but you will not find heaven, either. You will not know fresh air and flying. All of you, wherever you are: in your spiny cities or your one-bump towns. Find it, the hard stuff, the links of metal and chink, the fragments of stone filling your stomach. And pull, and pull, and pull."
-from Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

"'One must always be careful of books,' said Tessa, 'and what is inside them, for words have the power to change us.'"
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Only the very weak-minded refuse to be influenced by literature and poetry."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"'Are you laughing at me?' 'Not at you,' said Will, grinning, 'more because of you. I've never seen anyone get so excited over books before. You'd think they were diamonds.' 'Well, they are, aren't they? Isn't there anything you love like that?"
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?"
-from "The Higher Pantheism" by Lord Tennyson

"He didn't know what books meant to her, that they were symbols of truth and meaning."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Sometimes ... our lives can change so fast that the change outpaces our minds and hearts. It's those times, I think, when our lives have altered but we still long for the time before everything was altered -- that is when we feel the greatest pain. I can tell you, though, from experience, you grow accustomed to it. You learn to live your new life, and you can't imagine, or even really remember, how things were before."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy as cruel as the grave."
-Song of Soloman 8:6-7

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed
-Charlotte Bronte's "Evening Solace"

"He's very broken ... Like a lovely vase that someone has smashed. Only luck and skill can put it back together the way it was before."

-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare


"It is always better to live the truth than to live a lie."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, they shatter even the strength of iron or bronze."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you."
-from Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1) by Cassandra Clare

"I suppose she means for me to learn to love him. But she's young yet. She has plenty of years to learn what true love is, or at the very least what it isn't."
-from Wither (The Chemical Garden #1) by Lauren de Stefano

"There are so many thoughts in my head. Ones I should avoid. Ones I should gravitate toward. All of them fluttering like orange blossom petals in the morning fog. I can no longer discern which thoughts are dangerous; all I know is that I'm sick of being stagnant. So, not knowing what else to do, I start walking."
-from Fever (The Chemical Garden #2) by Lauren de Stefano

"It's momentum ... You can't just stand there if you want something to fly. You have to run."
-from Fever (The Chemical Garden #2) by Lauren de Stefano

"Even things that aren't broken can be fixed. ... Everything can become something it's not."
-from Fever (The Chemical Garden #2) by Lauren de Stefano

"'There are three versions of things: the one I see in my mind, and the one that carries onto the paper, and then what it ultimately becomes.' For some reason, I'm finding it difficult to meet his eyes. I nod at one of the lower shelves and say, 'Maybe it's because in your mind, you don't have to worry about building materials. So you're not as limited."
-from Fever (The Chemical Garden #2) by Lauren de Stefano

i have been bent and broken, but -- i hope -- into better shape.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness;
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate;
only love can do that.
-Martin Luther King Jr.

"You can be different, even crazy, as long as you come out of the house every now and then, so folks don't think you're an ax murderer. Two, if there's a story to tell, you can be sure there'll be someone to tell it."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

"Any book is a Good Book, and wherever they keep the Good Book safe is also the House a the Lord."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

"You couldn't take two roads. And once you were on one, there was no going back."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

"You couldn't change where you were from. But still, you didn't have to stay there. You didn't have to stay stuck in the past."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

"Even lost in the darkness, my heart will find you."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

"It's crazy what you see if you aren't really looking."
-from Beautiful Creatures (The Caster Chronicles, Book #1)

We can easily forgive a child
who is afraid of the dark;
the real tragedy of life is when
men are afraid of the light.
-Plato

"She showed me there was another world within the cracks of our uneven sidewalks. One that had been there all along, hidden in plain sight."
-from Beautiful Darkness (The Caster Chronicles, Book #2)

"'How can a place be a no place? You're either in a place, or you're not.' But as I said it, I knew it wasn't true."
-from Beautiful Darkness (The Caster Chronicles, Book #2)

"I knew I was in the moment before the thing happens -- the thing that changes your life forever. It was like time stopped, even though everything around me was still moving."
-from Beautiful Darkness (The Caster Chronicles, Book #2)

"I think you'll find the impossible is possible more often than we think."
-from Beautiful Darkness (The Caster Chronicles, Book #2)

"It's funny how the good things are all tied up with the bad. Sometimes it's hard to tell which is which. But either way, you end up taking your sugar with your salt and your kicks with your kisses."
-from Beautiful Chaos (The Caster Chronicles, Book #3)

"Black skeletons of enormous homes reduced to nothing but charred framework, as empty and hollow as the towns the Union soldiers left in their wake. ... It was as if the ground itself had been scarred by what happened here."
-from Beautiful Chaos (The Caster Chronicles, Book #3)

"I have been bent and broken, but -- I hope -- into a better shape."
-from Beautiful Chaos (The Caster Chronicles, Book #3)

"Sorry to disappoint you. He's not evil. He's just a jerk. Sometimes it's a fine line."
-from Beautiful Chaos (The Caster Chronicles, Book #3)

"Do you believe in love before first sight?"
-from Beautiful Chaos (The Caster Chronicles, Book #3)

"Was it really so far-fetched to think that words had a way of shaping a person's whole life?"
-from Beautiful Redemption (The Caster Chronicles, Book #4)

"Sometimes we make our own fate. Things the cards can't see. Depends on which side a the gate you choose."
-from Beautiful Redemption (The Caster Chronicles, Book #4)

"How could my insides be so taut and relaxed at once? After a lifetime of hoping to meet him, imagining what he might be like, he was not what I'd expected, mostly because he put up with me."
-from Incarnate (Newsoul, Book #1) by Jodi Meadows

"Story has it that when you meet your match, it's usually at a dedication, because you're not seeing what body someone is in. You're drawn to their soul. Maybe someone's been waiting for her."
-from Incarnate (Newsoul, Book #1) by Jodi Meadows

"Well, of course I thought I felt something for my hero who turned out to be a good man, too. I shouldn't have expected anything less."
-from Incarnate (Newsoul, Book #1) by Jodi Meadows

"I realized I'd needed him my whole life, before we even met."
-from Incarnate (Newsoul, Book #1)

"It's like when part of you stops hurting and suddenly you're yourself again, healthy and whole, and only then do you understand that you've been in pain for awhile."
-from Boundless (Unearthly Trilogy, Book #3)

"I have to be strong, I have to remember why we broke up in the first place ... where he wouldn't be constantly kept in the dark. He needs someone normal. ... Someone he can protect the way a man protects his woman, and not the other way around. Someone not me."
-from Boundless (Unearthly Trilogy, Book #3)

"I lied. I said I could never care for him. I told him I never wanted to see him again. And he looked at me for a long moment, and then he was gone. Just like that. I never told anyone about that night." She exhales through her lips like she's just set down something heavy. "So there's your story. I lied." "You did care for him," I say carefully. "I loved him," she whispers. "He was my sun and moon for a time. I was crazy about him."
-from Boundless (Unearthly Trilogy, Book #3)

"So often we only do what we think is expected of us, when we are capable of so much more."
-from Boundless (Unearthly Trilogy, Book #3)

"I could stay here and get no answers, or I could take my chances with the crazy fearless boy."
-from False Memory by Dan Krokos

"Whatever was between us is reset. I don't know you. ... Why did you do it Noah? Why did you think you had that right? We grew up together. You knew I could take care of myself."
-from False Memory by Dan Krokos

"These echos of my love for him, they don't truly belong to this new person I've become. Claiming them would be selfish, because Noach obviously still thinks of me as the Girl Before. Who knows how he'll feel when he realizes she's long gone."
-from False Memory by Dan Krokos

"I'm starting to realize my life doesn't have to be about an identity, or a lack of one. If I can focus on the little moments, however fleeting, they become my own. No one experiences them the way I do but me."
-from False Memory by Dan Krokos

did you know, the first time I saw you, i thought: i've never seen anything more captivating? ... i saw you and i wanted to be close to you, i wanted you to let me in ...

"I gritted my teeth, burying my face in the pillow so no one would hear me cry. When my sobs finally subsided and my breathing calmed down, I felt oddly separated from myself, like a wall of steel was coming down, protecting the real me from the one that would now face the world."
-from The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze

"The problem with human attraction is not knowing if it will be returned."
-from Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush Saga #1) by Becca Fitzpatrick

The day we met, frozen, I held my breath,
Right from the start, I knew I had found a home for my heart
-"A Thousand Years, Pt. 2" by Christina Perri feat. Steve Kaze

"For what it's worth, I like the idea that there's not a guy at school who matches up to your expectations. ... You're not cagey, Nora. Not shy, either. You just need a very good reason to go out of your way to get to know someone."
-from Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush Saga #1) by Becca Fitzpatrick

"I thought I was in love. And when you think you're in love, you're willing out stick it out and make it work until it is love."
-from Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush Saga #1) by Becca Fitzpatrick

"Gosh, it was nice talking to you, but I've got a lot of things I'd rather be doing. Like sticking my hand in the garbage disposal."
-from Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush Saga #1) by Becca Fitzpatrick

"Even though Kate knew she'd been right to break up with him -- if a guy wouldn't own up to dating you, you had to give him the boot, right? -- the decision still hurt. She'd thought they had something. Something real."
-from Starstruck (The Fame Game #1 by Lauren Conrad)

"Love is never easy -- love destroys things. It breaks hearts. It tears apart families. But it is the one thing that makes everything better. Love itself is perfect -- it's just those of us who feel it aren't."
-from Starstruck (The Fame Game #2 by Lauren Conrad)

"She thought about their high school years, when Drew would drop anything he was doing to be at her beck and call. She suddenly decided she needed a Slushee at midnight? He'd bring it to her. Her car broke down on the side of the 101? He'd be there before any tow truck. He'd doted on her utterly and completely. And she'd counted on that."
-from Starstruck (The Fame Game #2 by Lauren Conrad)

"Honestly, why do boys always think they know what's best for us? Why can't they just talk?"
-from The Lost Prince (Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #1) by Julie Kagawa

"My grandfather was a wise man ... He told me not to put your trust in only your eyes. That to truly see, sometimes you had to put your trust in only your eyes. That to truly see, sometimes you had to put your faith in the invisible things. You had to believe what no one was willing to."
-from The Lost Prince (Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #1) by Julie Kagawa

"It was over, and I knew that. But you don't love someone for almost two years and then turn it off overnight."
-from The Selection (The Selection #1) by Kiera Cass

"If your life is as upside down as you say it is, then she has to be here somewhere. In my experience, true love is usually the most inconvenient kind."
-from The Selection (The Selection #1) by Kiera Cass

"Maxon squeezed by hand tight, and I did the same to his. In that moment, it felt like we had a connection, something true and deep."
-from The Selection (The Selection #1) by Kiera Cass

"I wish I could feel you the same way you feel me, but I have your love. Nothing will ever outweigh that. Some people do their entire lives never feeling the emotions you've given me. There is no regret in that."
-from Finale (Hush, Hush Saga #4 by Becca Fitzpatrick

"Did you know, the first time I saw you, I thought: I've never seen anything more captivating? ... I saw you, and I wanted to be close to you. I wanted you to let me in. I wanted to know you in a way no one else did. I wanted you, all of you. The wanting nearly drove me mad."
-from Finale (Hush, Hush Saga #4 by Becca Fitzpatrick

Hey, I heard you were a wild one, ooh,
If I took you home it'd be a home run
-"Wild Ones" by Flo Rida feat. Sia

I've made up my mind, don't need to think it over,
If I'm wrong, I am right,
Don't need to look no further, this is ain't lust,
I know this is love
But if I tell the world, I'll never say enough,
'Cause it was not said to you and that's exactly what I need to do
If I end up with you
Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements,
Even if it leads nowhere?
Oh, would it be a waste,
Even if I knew my place?
Should I leave it there?
Should I give up or should I just keep chasing pavements,
Even if it leads nowhere?
I build myself up and fly around in circles,
Wait then as my heart drops and my back begins to tingle,
Finally could this be it?
-"Chasing Pavements" by Adele

in the end you can't always choose what to keep. you can only choose how you let go.

The first of many, many updates to come ... Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

"Strays and wanderers are often sent by the gods."
-from Rick Riordan's dedication at the beginning of Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus #3)

"Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice.
-Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus #3) by Rick Riordan

"But she wondered why beautiful things had to be wrapped up with evil history? Or was it the other way around? Maybe the evil history made it necessary to build beautiful things, to mask the darker aspects."
-Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus #3) by Rick Riordan

"You were ready to jump. ... You just weren't sure of it yet."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"The two of us hold each other's gazes for a long, unembarrassed moment ... I'm not sure what he knows -- whether he knows me, or just something about me."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I've realized one thing, though. Even though I've done the right thing -- burned the words and tried to forget them -- it doesn't work. These words don't go away."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"Outside the door, Xander waits for me. It strikes me that this symbolizes what is wrong here. No one can ever really come in, and when it's time to let them, we don't know how."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"Maybe it's even more simple than that. Maybe he never wants to touch me. Perhaps ... I am only a friend. A friend who finally wants to know his story, nothing more. And at first, that's who I was. I wanted to know more about this boy who lives among us, but who never truly speaks. More about what happened before. ... But now I feel like finding out about him is one of the ways I find out about myself. I did not expect to love his words. I did not expect to find myself in them. Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?"
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"This way you can look at it one last time. It's never really lost to you as long as you remember it."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I only mean to tell him a few more lines, but once I start telling him it's hard to hold back, and I say the whole thing. The words go together. Some things are created to be together."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I feel as if the two of us are our true selves when we hike in the trees on the hills. When we're with everyone else on Saturday nights, though, it becomes difficult. We go through a forest that is complicated and full of tangles and there are no stone cairns to guide us except the ones we build ourselves."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"Let me believe in this, all of this, and you believe it, too."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"That's how I know they are dreams. Because the simple and plain and everyday things are the ones that we can never have."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"Our time together feels like a storm, like wild wind and rain, like something too big to handle but too powerful to escape. It blows around me and tangles my hair, leaves water on my face, makes me know that I am alive, alive, alive. There are moments of calm and pause as there are in every storm, and moments when our words fork lightning, at least for each other."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I believe in you ... That's more faith than I ever thought I'd have."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"And then he says it, right out there on the Hill, and of all the words I have hidden and saved and treasured, these are the ones I will never forget, the most important ones of all. 'I love you.' Lightning. Once it has forked, hot-white, from sky to earth, there is no going back."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I didn't see him differently because I saw his face on the portscreen ... I saw him differently because I saw him outside, unguarded for a moment. ... I saw him seeing me."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"The darkness behind doesn't worry me; neither do the stars ahead. I think of how perhaps the best way to fly would be with hands full of earth so you always remember where you came from, how hard walking could sometimes be."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

"I couldn't find a way to fly to you so I walked every step on this stone."
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

I climb into the dark for you
Are you waiting in the stars for me?
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

"Love changes what is probable and makes unlikely things possible."
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

"How much do we have to show the people we love? What pieces of my life do I have to lay bare, carve out, and put before her? Is it enough that I have pointed the way to who I am?"
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

"I think of how many invisible injuries are possible. Ones scored on your heart, your brain, your bones. How do we all stand? I wonder. What is it that keeps us moving?"
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

"Everyone has something of beauty about them. In the beginning for me, it was [his] eyes I noticed, and I love them still. But loving lets you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a hand, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the love as pieces, as whys -- why he walks like this, why he closes his eyes like that -- you can love those parts, too, and it's a love at once more complicated and more complete."
-from Crossed (Matched Trilogy #2) by Ally Condie

"They've matched me with the one person in camp I care about. Which goes to show that caring about anyone leaves you vulnerable, but I still can't stop."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"I promised that I wouldn't let fear make me into someone I didn't want to be. Now I'm someone who can trust and be trusted."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"Everyone has a currency ... One of the most interesting ones is knowledge, when people want to know things, not possess them. Of course, what people want to know is a similarly varied and intricate business."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"You cannot change your journey if you are unwilling to move at all."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"She loved someone before and so did I. The Society and the Rising and the world are all still out there, pressing against us. But Lei holds them away. She's made enough space for two people to stand up together, whether or not any Society or Rising says that they can. She's done it before. The amazing thing is that she's not afraid to do it again. When we fall in love the first time, we don't know anything. We risk a lot less than we do if we choose to love again."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"I believe this. That every person might have a way to fly, a line of poetry to put down for others to see, a hand to heal."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"Even though Xander is gone, even though all cannot be as everyone would wish, there is satisfaction in knowing that something good and right and true was a part of you. That you had the blessing, gift, good fortune, perfect luck, to know someone like this, to pass through fire and water and stone and sky together and emerge, all of you, strong enough to hold on, strong enough to let go."
-from Reached (Matched Trilogy #3) by Ally Condie

"I suppose there is no way of truly knowing one's heart until one is put to the test."
-from Sweet Evil (Sweet Trilogy #1) by Wendy Higgins

"Because in the end you can't always choose what to keep. You can only choose how you let it go."
-from Matched (Matched Trilogy #1) by Ally Condie

i think ... that sometimes we don't feel the things that we are. but others can feel them. i feel your strength ...

Failing to catch me at first keep encouraged,

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you.

-"Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

"What on earth did you do with your hands when the one thing they wanted to hold was suddenly, gruesomely gone?"

-from Passion (Fallen #3) by Lauren Kate

"Her life didn't have to be out of her hands. She could shape her own destiny. Somehow. She didn't have it all figured out yet, but she could feel a solution drawing nearer. How else would she have found herself here in the first place? How else would she have known now that it was time to move on?"

-from Passion (Fallen #3) by Lauren Kate

"The past is important for all the information and wisdom it holds. But you can get lost in it. You've got to learn to keep the knowledge of the past with you as you pursue the present."

-from Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

"You said a curse is only a curse if I allowed myself to be cursed by it. You said ... I had it in my power to free myself of any curse -- that curses were preludes to blessings."

-from Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

"This was the very first time she and Daniel had met on Earth ... Neither recognized the other. Yet they were already, instantly, in love."

-from Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

"'Imagine how lonely it was, in a Hell of my own making, stranded at the altar, the greatest fool of all time, enduring seven thousand years of agony.' 'Stop,' she whispered. 'You have to stop loving me. Because I stopped loving you.'"

-from Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

"'I thought that what I felt for you was right,' Luce said. 'I loved you until it hurt me, until our love was consumed by your pride and rage. The thing you called love made me disappear. So I had to stop loving you ... Your love diminished me. I never meant to hurt you. I only meant to stop you from hurting me.'"

-from Rapture (Fallen #4) by Lauren Kate

"She didn't have to explain herself to Po, and he explained himself to her without her having to ask. She'd never known a person with whom she could communicate so freely -- so unused was she to the phenomenon of friendship."
-from Graceling (Graceling Realm #1) by Kristin Cashore

"Giddon's hope bewildered her. She couldn't fathom his foolishness, to fall in love with her, and she still didn't entirely believe it to be true."
-from Graceling (Graceling Realm #1) by Kristin Cashore

"She hadn't asked for a person whose absence, if she woke in the middle of the night, would distress her -- not because of the protection he would then fail to give, but simply because she wished his company. She hadn't asked for a person whose company she wished."
-from Graceling (Graceling Realm #1) by Kristin Cashore


"'Will you forgive me if I take my strength from yous?' 'You may always have whatever strength I have. But you're the strong one, Fire. Right now I don't feel strong.' 'I think,' she said, 'that sometimes we don't feel the things that we are. But others can feel them. I feel your strength.'"
-from Fire (Graceling Realm #2) by Kristin Cashore

"She didn't know what she thought, she needed more time than they did, she couldn't always be rushing ahead the way they were, and it frustrated her to look back and realize that she'd let herself be pushed into something."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

"What was it about the dark that made her question things she'd never questioned before in the day?"
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

"The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know. I want to know everything."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

"'But that's how memory works,' Bitterblue said quietly. 'Things disappear without your permission, then come back again without your permission.' And sometimes, they come back incomplete and warped."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

"Fine ... I'll go meet your friend the compulsive liar. I'm sure we'll get along smashingly."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

"Every configuration of people is an entirely new universe unto itself."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore


"She also wondered if going to see something that was no longer there was a good idea -- and if that mattered, when it came to a person's heart."
-from Bitterblue (Graceling Realm #3) by Kristin Cashore

it's hard to dance with the devil on your back, so shake him off ...

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play
And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn,
It's always darkest before the dawn
And I've been a fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I'm always dragging that horse around
And our love is pastured, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn
Shake it out, shake it out,
Shake it out, shake it out, whoa ...
And it's hard to dance with the devil on your back,
So shake him off
And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight, I'm gonna cut it out and restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn ...
And given half the chance, would I take any of it back?
It's a fine romance, but it's left me so undone
It's always darkest before the dawn
And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark, at the end of my rope
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat ...
But what the hell, I'm gonna let it happen to me
-from "Shake It Out" by Florence and the Machine

we don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey no one can take for us or spare us ...

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."
-Marcel Proust

"Therefore, you can never lose hope -- hatikva -- because if you keep hope alive, it will keep you alive."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"Adversity tests one's strength of character. In difficult times, in dark times, some people shine."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"Bar none, the Old English D is just as classic as it gets."
-Brennan Boesch

"Don't let them reduce you to that ... Don't let them define how you see yourself, or your place here. And if you ever need someone to talk to, I'm not hard to find."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"There are moments in life when everything pauses. The earth hesitates, the atmosphere stills, and time shrinks and folds onto itself."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"From the moment I saw you, I knew you were different. ... Guess my instincts are good. Some things you just know without question."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"You gotta adjust to the dark so the light can find you."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"A seeker must learn to see in the dark -- relying on what she knows in her heart."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"The two of us drawn to each other, bound by forces unseen. But before he can get to the words, I break free of the spell and make a mad limping dash."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

"[They] allowed me to be ripped apart so I could be rebuilt. And because of it, I am now bigger, better, and stronger than I ever thought possible."
-from Fated (Soul Seekers #1) by Alyson Noel

If by the time the bar closes,
You feel like falling down
I'll carry you home
Tonight
We are young,
So let's set the world on fire,
We can burn brighter
Than the sun
-"We Are Young" by Fun

I threw a wish in the well
Don't ask me I'll never tell
I look to you as it fell and now you're in my way
I trade my soul for a wish,
Pennies and dimes for a kiss,
I wasn't looking for this
But now you're in my way
Your stare was holding
Ripped jeans, skin was showing,
Hot night, wind was blowing
Where you think you're going baby?
Hey, I just met you,
And this is crazy
But here's my number
So call me, maybe
It's hard to look right at you, baby
But here's my number,
So call me, maybe ...
You took your time with call,
I took my time with the fall,
You gave me nothing at all,
But still you're still in my way
I beg and borrow and steal,
At first sight and it's real
I didn't know I would feel it
But it's in my way
-from "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen

"No man chooses evil because it is evil. He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks."
-Mary Wollstonecraft

"You would do anything save him, whatever it cost you, whatever you might owe to Hell or Heaven, would you not?"
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"There are some people -- people the universe seems to have singled out for special destinies. Special favors and special torments. God knows we're all drawn toward what's beautiful and broken; I have been, but some people cannot be fixed. Or if they can be, it's only by love and sacrifice so great it destroys the giver."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"Nerd love. It is a beautiful thing, while also being an object mockery and hilarity for those of us who are more sophisticated."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"In a true partnership, the kind that lasts through the ages, there is an unspoken communion."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"I knew you were crazy. ... But I didn't realize you absolutely spectacularly out of your goddamned mind."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"Comforting someone when they were stricken with loss was something else. It meant commitment. It meant caring. It meant you wanted to ease their pain, and at the same time you were thanking God that whatever the bad thing was that had happened, it hadn't happened to them."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"I was in the dark ... There was nothing there but shadows, and I was a shadow. And then I heard your voice."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"If you don't say something to him, he's going to assume it's because you're not interested, and he'll give up. He needs you, Iz, and you need him. He just also needs you to be the one to say it."
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

"There are ways in which we're so alike. We're reckless. We don't think before we act. We'll do anything for the people we love. And I never thought how scary that was for the people who loved me and i saw you and it terrified me. How could I protect you if you wouldn't let me?"
-from City of Lost Souls (Mortal Instruments #5) by Cassandra Clare

You know, the bed feels warmer
Sleeping here alone
You know, I dream in color
And do the things I want
You think you got the best of me,
Think you had the last laugh,
Bet you think that everything good is gone,
Think you left me broken down,
Think that I'd come running back,
Baby, you don't know me,
'Cause your dead wrong
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely 'cause I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter,
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over 'cause you're gone
You heard that I was starting over with someone new,
They told you I was moving on, over you
You didn't think that I'd come back,
I'd come back swinging,
You tried to break me but you see,
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger ...
Thanks to you, I got a new thing started
Thanks to you, I'm not the brokenhearted
Thanks to you, I'm finally thinking 'bout me
You know, in the end the day I left was just the beginning
-from "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson

For you, there'll be no more crying,
For you, the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when I'm with you,
It's all right, I know it's right
To you, I'll give the world
To you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you,
It's all right, I know it's right
And the songbirds are singing like they know the score
-from "Songbird" by Fleetwood Mac

if you're for real and not pretend, then i guess you can hang with me ...

This post is already ridiculously long, so I'll have more tomorrow from a couple books I've read and some of my current favorite songs. :)

You had a lot of crooks tryin' to steal your heart

Never really had luck, couldn't figure out how to love,

How to love

You had a lot of moments that didn't last forever

Now you're in the corner tryin' to put it all together

How to love, how to love,

When you was just a youngin' your looks were so precious

Now you're grown up so fly, so fly it's like a blessing

But you can't have a man look at you for five seconds

Without you being insecure ...

Oh, you had a lot of dreams that transformed in to visions

The fact that you saw the world affected all your decisions

But it wasn't your fault

Wasn't in your intentions ...

See, I just want you to know

That you deserve the best and you're beautiful

... And I want you to know you're far from the usual

-from "How to Love" by Lil' Wayne

If you're for real and not pretend

Then I guess you can hang with me

When my patience's wearing thin

And I'm ready to give in

Will you pick me up again?

Then I guess you can hang with me

And if you do right by me

I'm gonna do right by you

And if you keep it tight

I'm gonna confide in you

I know what's on your mind, 

There will be time for that, too,

If you hang with me ... 

When you see me drift astray

Out of touch and out of place

Will you tell me to my face?

Then I guess you can hang with me

-from "Hang With Me" by Robyn

"Since he knew things at the beginning, maybe at the end he knew things, too. That we had gone as far as chance would take us. That nothing is more sacred than youth or more hopeful than turning yourself over to someone and saying: 'I have this time, it is not a long time, but it is my best time and my best gift, and I give it to you.' When I revisit my youth, I revisit you."

-from Anthropology of An American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

"The paradox of love is that to have it is to want to preserve it because it's perfect in the moment, but that preservation is impossible because the perfection is only ever an instant passed through. Love, like travel, is a series of moments that we immediately leave behind. Still, we try to hold on and embalm against all evidence and common sense, proclaiming our promises and plans. The more I loved him, the more I felt hope. But hope acknowledges uncertainty and so I also felt my first premonitions."
-from Wanderlust: An Affair with the Five Continents by Elizabeth Eaves

"Something about first love defies duplication. Before it, your heart is blank. Unwritten. After, the walls are left inscribed and graffitied. When it ends, no amount of scrubbing will purge the scrawled oaths and sketched images, but sooner or later, you find that there's space for someone else, between the words and in the margins."
-from Where You Are by Tamara Webber

Are you gonna kiss me or not?
Are we gonna do this or what?
I think you I like you a lot,
But you're 'bout to miss your shot
Are you gonna kiss me or not?
... I really think we got a shot
Are you gonna kiss me or not?
-from "Are You Gonna Kiss Me or Not?" by Thompson Square

There's a boy I know,
He's the one I dream of
Looks into my eyes
Takes me to the clouds above
Oh, I lose control
Can't seem to get enough, uh-huh,
When I wake from dreaming,
Tell me is it really love?
How will I know?
Don't trust your feelings
How will I know?
How will I know?
Love can be deceiving
How will I know?
How will I know if he really loves me?
I say a prayer with every heart beat
I fall in love whenever we meet
I'm asking you 'cause you know about these things
How will I know if he's thinking of me?
I try to phone, but I'm too shy can't speak,
Falling in love is all bittersweet
This love is strong,
Why do I feel weak?
-from "How Will I Know?" by Whitney Houston

"The glue of mutual need that bonded us so tightly together for all those years is melting away. Dark patches, not light, show the spaces between us. How can it be that today, in the face of 12's horrible demise, we are too angry to even speak to each other."
-from Mockingjay (Hunger Games Trilogy #3) by Suzanne Collins

"I drag myself out of nightmares each morning and find there's no relief in waking. ... Better not to give in to it. It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart."
-from Mockingjay (Hunger Games Trilogy #3) by Suzanne Collins

"My guess is that fearful events are the hardest to root out. They're the ones we naturally remember the best, after all."
-from Mockingjay (Hunger Games Trilogy #3) by Suzanne Collins

i make my own sunshine ...

"Look at what isn't there. It's the only way you might survive."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"You can never be free of your shadow -- your sheut. All living beings have them. ... The sheut is not just a physical shadow. It's a magical projection -- the silhouette of the soul."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"Knowledge of any value can't be given. It must be sought and earned."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"I never liked being thwarted. Whenever I felt like something was impossible, I usually tried even harder out of sheer stubbornness."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"Befriending psychopaths is one of our specialties."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"Here's some free advice: Don't walk towards chaos."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"Together, we tried to find calm in the chaos. I focused on the most peaceful, well-ordered moments of my life."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"Funny how that works: sometimes you don't really understand something until you destroy it."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"A person's shadow stood for his legacy, his impact on the world. Some people cast hardly any shadow at all. Some cast long, deep shadows that endured for centuries."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

"For what it's worth: trust your feelings. I can't promise that you'll never get hurt again, but I can promise you the risk is worth it."
-from The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3) by Rick Riordan

Everything is wonderful
Everything is great
Free as a bird singing outside my window pane
Got a fresh new start
It's a brand new day
And I've got lots of love to give away
It don't matter if it's raining, nothing can faze me
I make my own sunshine
And if you think you can break me,
Baby you're crazy
I make my own sunshine
-"I Make My Own Sunshine" by Alyssa Bonagura

"'The very first time I saw you,' Daniel continued, 'it wasn't any different than any other time I've seen you since. the world was newer, but you were just the same. It was--' 'Love at first sight.' That part she knew. He nodded. 'Just like always.'"
-from Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate

"When we summon Announcers, we're making a sort of wish. Not a wish for anything material, but a wish to better understand the world, our role in it, and what's to become of us."
-from Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate

"Sometimes beautiful things come into our lives out of nowhere. We can't always understand them, but we have to trust in them. I know you want to question everything, but sometime it pays to just have a little faith."
-from Torment (Fallen #2) by Lauren Kate

"If I could go back in time and talk to my twenty-year-old self, the first thing I would say is: 'Lose the perm.' Secondly I would say: "Relax. Really. Just relax. Don't sweat it.' I can't remember a time when I wasn't anxious and fearful that the parade would pass me by. And I was sure there was someone or something outside of myself with all the answers. I had a driving, anxiety-filled ambition. ... I wanted to belong and feel like I was valued and seen."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"As I look back, the road to where I am today has been a series of happy accidents I was either smart or stupid enough to take advantage of. I thought I had to have a plan, a strategy. Turns out I just had to be ready and willing to take chances, look at what's right in front of me, and put my heart into everything I do."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"We were all swept up in the electricity of putting on this show. We were more focused, disciplined, and committed than we had ever been in our young lives. We had all pitched in to build the set together, and showed up after school for rehearsals. When we finally performed, no one missed a line or a cue. We were a team, and we supported one another. Being a part of this group of fellow actors, feeling needed and valued and there for one another, was a high I would chase for the rest of my life."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"I had gone to great lengths to please people who never had any intention of pleasing me back or giving me what I wanted."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"All my life, I'd felt I was at the mercy of people and circumstances; I'd had the sense that life was happening to me. This book presented the jaw-dropping idea that I had the power to consciously choose how I see the world and the people around me, and that my life could be different if I made more powerful choices."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"What I came to know was that it was the shadow, the great unclaimed areas of the psyche, that my best work would come out of. If I feel proud of anything I've done in my acting career, it came from the stuff that is hard to look at; stuff that feels sticky and dark. These parts tend to want to stay far from the light of day, as they conjure fear or shame. ... I hadn't yet learned how valuable these places are creatively."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"I do enjoy the spotlight, but only for moments at a time, and I would prefer to have others in it with me. it's one thing when you're sharing performance anxiety with a group, and another when you're out there all by your lonesome."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"I didn't have time to think and let the fear stop me. I put my head down like a bull and barreled forward."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"I didn't know how to fall in love with an actual person, but boy could I create a great one in my imagination."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"After one evening with someone, even someone this wonderful, I had no business deciding I'd found my soul mate. And yet that was what I was feeling."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

"The way I see it, these accidents of fate were actually my life taking care of me."
-from Happy Accidents by Jane Lynch

i hope this gets to you ...

I've been searching for a couple words
That could grow wings and fly like birds
And I know, of course, that it sounds absurd
But when you're in love, all the lines get blurred ...
Just imagine the world a little smaller tonight
And I hope this, I hope this gets to you
And I hope this, I hope this gets to you
... You think you feel my heart jumping through my chest
And when you look at me, it beats three times as fast
And all of this is passing us too quick for regrets
-"I Hope This Gets to You" by The Daylights

"It's amazing how close I have been, all this time, to my old life. And yet the distance that divides me from it is vast."
-from Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy #2) by Lauren Oliver

"There are always choices. As long as we're still breathing, we can keep making choices and keep striving for our objectives. the choices aren't always ones we like, but I honestly believe that if we keep choosing, we can often get to where we need to be. If we stop choosing we have no chance. Accepting limitations isn't my first choice because it feels, to me, like it limits the options we can see."
-Melissa Marr

"I wonder if this is how people always get close: They heal each other's wounds; they repair the broken skin."
-from Pandemonium (Delirium Trilogy #2) by Lauren Oliver

"Whenever he came near, she could smell wildflowers, could hear the rustle of willow branches, as if she were sitting by a pond on one of those rare summer days: a taste of midsummer in the start of the frigid fall And she wanted to keep that taste, bask in it, roll in it until the warmth soaked into her very skin. It terrified her, the almost irresistible urge to get closer to him ... He terrified her."
-from Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely #1) by Melissa Marr

"Beauty wasn't in the order, but in unplanned harmony."
-from Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely #1) by Melissa Marr

"Maybe you should slow down, so I can catch you."
-from Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely #1) by Melissa Marr

"She'd been resisting the need to reach out to him since they first met. It wasn't logical but it was definitely there."
-from Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely #1) by Melissa Marr

"I give you my vow of honor ... And from this day forward, your wishes shall be my own as often as I am able."
-from Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely #1) by Melissa Marr


"To all the people who've been in the abyss and found (or are finding) a way to reach solid ground -- you're proof that the seemingly impossible can happen."
-Melissa Marr's dedication from Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely #2)


"The things you do when you're desperate aren't who you are."
-from Ink Exchange (Wicked Lovely #2) by Melissa Marr


"Just be you -- strong and honest. The rest falls into place if you do that. It always has. It always will. Remember that. No matter what happens over centuries ahead of you, remember to be honest with yourself. And if you fail, forgive yourself. You'll make mistakes. The whole world is new."
-from Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely #3) by Melissa Marr

"Better to take a chance on forever than wonder 'what if' later."
-from Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely #3) by Melissa Marr

"Sometimes, things just need a little attention and time to grow."
-from Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely #3) by Melissa Marr

"To be remade means someone giving you of themselves."
-from Fragile Eternity (Wicked Lovely #3) by Melissa Marr

"Some choices can be traps. Do you honestly think that staying the course just because you once thought it was right is wise? There are other choices."
-from Radiant Shadows (Wicked Lovely #4) by Melissa Marr

"I need to belong to one person, who belongs only to me."
-from Darkest Mercy (Wicked Lovely #5) by Melissa Marr

"I want to be loved; I want to be consumed by it."
-from Darkest Mercy (Wicked Lovely #5) by Melissa Marr

"She spotted a lone dandelion, and it crossed her mind that a younger Luce would have pounced on it and then made a wish and blown. But this Luce's wishes felt too heavy for something so light."
-from Fallen (Fallen #1) by Lauren Kate

"People are here because they've got baggage. I'm talking curbside-check-in, pay-the-fine-'cause-it's-over-fifty-pounds kind of baggage. Got it?"
-from Fallen (Fallen #1) by Lauren Kate

"This was precisely the kind of circular argument she did not want to engage in. Luce didn't want to play any games. She just wanted to be with him. Only, she had no idea why. Or how to go about it. Or really, what being with him would even mean. All she knew was that, despite everything, he was the one she thought about. The one she cared about. She'd thought if she could track every time they'd connected ... she might be able to find some reason."
-from Fallen (Fallen #1) by Lauren Kate

"She would tell him that she wasn't going to let fear drive her away, not this time, not anymore. Because she knew something, understood something that had taken her far too long to piece together. Something wild and strange made their past experiences together both more and less believable ... She hadn't understood what it meant, what it all added up to -- the pull she felt toward time, her dreams -- until now."
-from Fallen (Fallen #1) by Lauren Kate

and so lying underneath those stormy skies, she'd say 'oh, i know the sun must set to rise' ...

The first time ever I saw your face
I thought the sun rose in your eyes
And the moon and the stars
Were the gifts you gave
To the dark and endless skies
-"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" originally by Roberta Flack (recently covered on Glee)

When she was just a girl
She expected the world
But it flew away from her reach
So she ran away in her sleep
And dreamed of para, para, paradise
Para, para, paradise
Para, para, paradise
Every time she closed her eyes ...
Life goes on, it gets so heavy,
The wheel breaks the butterfly
Every tear a waterfall
In the stormy night she'll close her eyes
In the stormy night away she'd fly
... And so lying underneath those stormy skies,
She'd say 'Oh, I know the sun must set to rise.'
-"Paradise" by Coldplay

Days like this I want to drive away
Pack my bags and watch your shadow fade
You chewed me up and spit me out
Like I was poison in your mouth
You took my light, you drained me down
That was then and this is now
Now look at me
... This is the part of me that you're never gonna ever take away from me
Throw your sticks and stones, throw your bombs and blows,
But you're not gonna break my soul
This is the part of me that you're never gonna ever take away from me, no ...
Now look at me I'm sparkling
A firework, a dancing flame
You'll never put me out again
I'm glowing, oh, whoa
You can keep that diamond ring
It don't mean nothing anyway
In fact you can keep everything,
Yeah, yeah -- except for me
-"Part of Me" by Katy Perry

I let it fall, my heart
And as it fell, you rose to claim it
It was dark and I was over
Until you kissed my lips and you saved me
My hands they're strong
But my knees were far to weak
To stand in your arms
Without falling to your feet
But there's a side to you that I never knew, never knew
All the things you'd say, they were never true, never true
And the games you played, you would always win, always win
-"Set Fire to the Rain" by Adele

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave?
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall?
Watching you stand alone
All of my doubt
Suddenly goes away somehow
One step closer
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don't be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I'll love you for a thousand more
Time stand stills
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath,
Every moment has come to this
One step closer ...
And all along, I believed I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
And I have loved you for a thousand years
-"A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri

I've waited a hundred years
But I'd wait a million more for you ...
Though we're tethered to the story we must tell
When I saw you,
Well I knew we'd tell it well
Like a whisper, we will tame the vicious seas
Like a feather, bringing kingdoms to their knees
-"Turning Page" by Sleeping at Last

"Is this one of those guide books celebrities write for girls? Oh, hell no. I'm only marginally qualified to be giving advice at all. My body mass index is certainly not ideal, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars because I never have cash on me, ad my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie sale section. I'm kind of a mess."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"However, you should know that I disagree with a lot of traditional advice. For instance, they say that the best revenge is living well. I say it's acid in the face -- who will love them now? Another old saying is that revenge is a dish best served cold. But it feels best served piping hot, straight out of the oven of outrage. My opinion? Take care of revenge right away. Push, shove, scratch that person while they're still within arm's reach. Don't let them get away! Who knows when you'll have this opportunity again?"
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"Teenage girls, please don't worry about being super popular in high school, or being the best actress in high school,, or the best athlete. Not only do people not care about any of that the second you graduate, but when you get older if you refer to your successes in high school too much, it actually makes you look kind of pitiful, like some babbling old Tennessee Williams character with nothing else going on in her life. What I've noticed is that almost no one who was a big star in high school is also a big star later in life. For us overlooked kids, it's so wonderfully fair."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quiet, observant kids. Besides being a delight to parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up. ... Sit next to the class clown and study him. Then grow up, take everything you learned, and get paid to be a real-life clown, unlike whatever unexciting thing the actual high school class clown is doing now."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. We never needed best friend gear because I guess with real friends you don't have to make it official. It just is."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I decided the odds were stacked against me, which strangely made me feel like I was going to get the job even more. Sports movies had brainwashed me into the believe that when the chips are down the most, that is when success is the most inevitable."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I'm the kind of person who would rather get my hopes up really high and watch them get dashed to pieces than wisely keep my expectations at bay and hope they are exceeded. This quality has made me a needy and theatrical friend, but has given me a spectacularly more dramatic emotional life."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"That's one nice thing about being a dork about men: you can sometimes play it off as restrained and classy."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I will try to like your boyfriend five times. That is a fair number of ties to hang out with your boyfriend and withhold judgment."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"As everyone knows, depressed people are some of the most boring people in the world. I know this because when I was depressed, people fled. Except my best friends. I will be there for you during your horrible break-up, or getting fired from your job, or if you're just having a bad couple of months or year. I will hate it and find you really tedious, but I promise I won't abandon you."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I will hate and re-like people for you. But you can't get mad if I can't keep track. Robby? Don't we hate him? No, we love him. Okay, okay. Sorry."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I know when you fall in love with someone that you will completely forget about me. That hurts my feelings, but it is okay. Please try to remember to text me, if you can, if you know I have something going on in my life."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"Everyone has a moment when they discover they love Amy Poehler. For most people, it happened sometime during her run on Saturday Night Live. For some it was when she came back to the show in 2009, nine months' pregnant, and did that complicated, hard-core Sarah Palin rap on Weekend Update."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I have never had a one-night stand. According to every women's magazine and television program ever made, this is super-unforgivably lame, and it behooves me to go reclaim my groove on an all-girls party trip to an unincorporated island territory of the United States. Every romantic comedy I watch depicts our adorable heroine walking back sheepishly from a stranger's place in the morning with bedhead and her eyeliner all sexy and smudged. ... I just don't understand any of that at all. Here's why: In my mind, the sexiest thing in the world is feeling that you're wanted. The slightly nervous asking of your phone number. The text message asking you to dinner. The simple overture of wanting me can satisfy my ego for a good long time."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"Don't you need to know something more about a guy than an evening's worth of conversation at a bar to make sex appealing?"
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"Fear is a pretty big turn-off. I'm talking about safety here. I don't even mean sexual health safety, like STDs. I mean good old-fashioned life-and-death safety. Here's what I can't wrap my brain around. I barely talk to strangers (a habit that I started as a child and that has served me well through my adulthood). So the idea of going to a stranger's house at night or having that stranger over to my house, sounds insanely dangerous. These fears have made it so that when my female friends talk to me about one-night stands, I'm an incredibly irritating listener.
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: So, then it was like 2 a.m. that same night, and he knocked on my apartment door. I was in my robe and nothing else --

Me: No underwear?

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: No. I said 'nothing else.' ... So he knocked at the door --

Me: Wait! Sorry. I'm just realizing your doorman let him up without ever seeing him before? Doesn't that disturb you, that your doorman would just let any old person off the street up to your apartment? I would give my doorman a book of photos of accepted guests that he could reference, like a reference book --

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: I'm doing fine with my doorman.

Me: I would have established a different procedure.

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: Great, Mindy. Anyway, then I showed up around the place.

Me: The doorman? (off ESL Friend's annoyed look) The guy! The guy! Yes.

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: He was into the way I decorated it. Really taking it in.

Me: He was casing the joint!

Excited Sexually Liberated Friend: No! He was not casing the joint! He was being sexy and sweet and making cute little jokes about family photos. And then he asked if he could see my bedroom.

Me: Your bedroom, so he could rape and murder you.
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"So, this is what I'm like: if you come over to my house, I need to know your first and last name. I need to have your phone number and a person whom we both know so you can't disappear forever in case you murder me. Ultimately, it comes down to this: How embarrassing would it be for me to be talking to a detective at a precinct after you tried to rape and murder me in my home, and not be able to tell him your name or any information about you because we were having a one-night stand? I've seen Law & Order: SVU. I know how it works."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"A remarkable thin about me is that the time that elapses between a sad thought and a flood of tears is three or four seconds. I felt so foolish, having spent so much time (and money!) getting ready."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"The secret I learned is that albums that remind me of my childhood happiness make me incredibly sad now. I only have perfect memories of singing along to Graceland with my parents on long car rides to Virginia Beach to visit my parents' friends. It's sort of my go-to stock image of my childhood, actually. I think it has something to do with knowing I'll never be able to go back to that time that makes me cry every time I listen to it."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"I find it extremely impossible not to cry when I hear Stevie Nicks's 'Lansdslide,' especially the lyric: 'I've been afraid of changing, because I've built my life around you.' I think a good test to see if a human is actually a robot/android/cylon is to have them listen to this song lyric and study their reaction. If they don't cry, you should stab them through the heart. You will find a fusebox."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"As my mom has said, when one person is unhappy, it usually means two people are unhappy but that one has not come to terms with it yet. Sandy hadn't realized how unhappy she was until he was gone. She told me that her husband's leaving her was the nicest gift he ever gave her, because she would have seen clearly enough to do it herself."
-from Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling

"That's when the sun comes out again. I suddenly become super aware of what's going on around me, like it's all slowing down for me to encounter piece by piece."
-from Unearthly (Unearthly Book #1) by Cynthia Hand

"I take a step toward him, my mouth opening to call his name. Then I remember that I don't know it. Like always, it's as if he hears me anyway and starts to turn, and my heart skips a beat when I don't wake up but see his face now, his mouth curling up in a half smile as he jokes with the guy next to him. He glances up ad his eyes meet mine. The hallway melts away. It's only him and me now."
-from Unearthly (Unearthly Book #1) by Cynthia Hand

"I put my hand out to shake, a gesture he seems to find charming. He takes my hand, and it's like my vision and the real world clap together at this moment. He smiles this stunning, lopsided smile. He's real. His hand around mine is warm and confident, just the right amount of pressure. I'm instantly dizzy."
-from Unearthly (Unearthly Book #1) by Cynthia Hand

"I can't get out of that moment when I was in his head, feeling what he felt, hearing his thoughts as he kissed me. I can feel him loving me. And it kills me, that moment when I feel his love shift into fear. The third morning I wake up with tears streaming down my face, and when I stare up at the ceiling, wallowing in my misery, a thought occurs to me. He loves me. Inside his head, his every thought and reaction was born of love, love inside and out, crazy, irrational (and sure, a bit lustful) love. He loves me, and that's also what terrified him ... He doesn't know what I am, but he loves me. I sit up. Maybe I should have figured this out a long time ago. I shouldn't have needed to read his heart in order to see it."
-from Unearthly (Unearthly Book #1) by Cynthia Hand

"He's good to people, respectful. He doesn't cuss. He's kind. Thoughtful. ... He doesn't make a big deal about me being different."
-from Unearthly (Unearthly Book #1) by Cynthia Hand

"I've never been one of those girls, either, who dreamed of getting married never forced a boy to say vows with e on the playground or dressed up in bedsheets and pretended to walk down the aisle. When I was a kid I fashioned swords out of tree branches, and Jeffrey and I chased each other around the backyard yelling, 'Surrender or die!' Not that I was a tomboy. I liked the color purple and nail polish and sleepovers and writing my crush's name in the margins of my notebooks at school as much as any other girl. But I ever honestly considered being married. Being Mrs. Somebody. I guess I assumed that I'd get married eventually. It just seemed like it was too far away to worry about it."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"This is what happens when I stop watching the news. They call it arson. I wonder what the police would do if they found out who really did it. Uh, yes, officer, I believe the one who started the fire was about six foot three. Black hair. Amber eyes. Big, black wings. Residence: hell. Occupation: leader of the Watchers. Birth date: the dawn of time."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"Nothing can ever truly separate you, not even death. Love binds you."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"I never got the whole love-triangle thing. You know, in movies or romance novels or what not, where there's one chick that all the guys are drooling over, even though you can't see anything particularly special about her. But oh, no, they both must have her. And she's like, oh dear, however will I choose? William is so sensitive, he understands me, he swept me off my feet, oh misery, blubber, blubber, but how can I go on living without Rafe and his devil-may-care ways and his dark ad only-a-little-abusive love? Upchuck. So unrealistic, I always thought. Joke's on me, I guess."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"Our thoughts and feelings are entwined ... Memories, images, desires, feelings You seem to have a knack with feelings. It will be stronger when you touch the person, skin to skin. And sometimes you might get an image or a specific sentence that they're thinking in the moment."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"We belong together. We're tow of a very rare kind. Meant to watch out for each other, meant to join hands, ad walk side by side, through fire, through death ... I feel like I'm falling from far up, plummeting to earth and at the same time, drowning in a deep pool, struggling upward toward the surface, my lugs bursting for air."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

'Funny that it turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy, my dream. I drive myself crazy trying to figure out why Tucker isn't there .. Thinking there shouldn't be a force on earth that would keep hi away. But in the end, he's not there because I asked him not to be. That's what we call irony. The ache really gets me then. This is it. My destined time My gauntlet to run, and I was meant to do it without Tucker. It gets so bad I have trouble breathing. I stop to catch y breath. Someone takes my hand. Christian, as I knew it would be. ... And this, I realize, is the moment of decision, what my vision has been warning me about all this tie. I could break away now, pull y hand from his, tell him again that I don't need him. I could hold on to my anger, my frustration at this hopeless choice. Or I could accept him. I could face what's between us and move on. It's such a big decision to ask of me now. It's not really fair. But then, it never has been fair, this entire fiasco, from start to finish."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"I know that when I think about my future, I'm usually overwhelmed, knowing how much will be expected of me. I know the odds are that I'll fail many of the things I try. And it's a big deal. What if I figure out what my purpose is, my reason for being on this planet, only to fall short? What if I don't pass the test?"
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"But then I think about what I've learned here in the last year, and i don't mean in my classes, but what I've learned from watching my friends face their futures and search for their purposes. I've learned that a storm isn't always just bad weather, and a fire can be the start of something new. I've found out that there are a lot more shades of gray in this world than I ever knew about. I've learned that sometimes, when you're afraid but you keep moving forward, that's the biggest kind of courage there is. And finally, I've learned that life isn't really about failure and success. It's about being present, in the moment when big things happen when everything changes, including yourself. So i would tell us, no matter how bright we think our futures are, it doesn't matter. Whether we go off to some fancy university or stay home and work. That doesn't define us. Our purpose on this earth is not a single event, an accomplishment we can check off a list. there is no test. No passing or failing. Only us, each moment shaping who we are, into what we will become. So I say forget about the future. Pay attention to now. This moment right now. Let go of expectations. Just be. Then you are free to become something great."
-from Hallowed (Unearthly Book #2) by Cynthia Hand

"English was my subject. And I was really good at writing. I could turn any essay I did into sounding I knew what I was talking about."
-Brennan Boesch

"You can't really be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes. You know that, right?"
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"It's so strange how life works: you want something and you wait and wait and feel like ti's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"I've never been comfortable with my body like Hana and some of the other girls at St. Anne's, never gotten over the awkward feeling that I've been fitted together just a little wrong in some very key places. Like I've been sketched by an amateur artist: If you don't look too closely, it's all right, but start focusing and all the smudges and mistakes become really obvious."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"I've learned to get really good at this -- say one thing when I'm thinking about something else, act like I'm listening when I'm not, pretend to e calm and happy when really I'm freaking out. It's one of those skill you perfect as you get older."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Sometimes I feel as though there are two mes, one coasting directly on top of the other: the superficial me, who nods when she's supposed to nod and says what she's supposed to say, and the other, deeper part, the part that worries and dreams. ... Most of the time they move along in sync and hardly notice the split, but sometimes it feels as though I'm two whole different people and could rip apart at any second."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"And maybe, after all, he really doesn't recognize me. We made eye contact for only a few seconds, and I'm sure to him I was only a blurry, in-between face, easy to forget. Not pretty. Not ugly, either. Just plain, like a thousand other faces you would see on the street. He, on the other hand, is most definitely not in-between."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Is it even remotely, conceivably possible he was sending a message? Is it possible he was asking me to meet him? The idea makes me dizzy. I keep thinking, too, about the single word, directed low and quietly straight into my ear: gray. He was there; he saw me; he remembered me. So many questions crowd my braind at once, it's like one of the famous Portland fogs has swept up from the ocean and settled there, making it impossible to think normal, functional thoughts."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"I remind myself that I probably imagined the whole thing -- the message, the meeting up. ... He's probably already forgotten about the two girls he met at the lab complex today. He was probably just being nice earlier, making casual conversation. it's for the best. But no matter how may ties I repeat it, the strange, hollow feeling in my stomach doesn't go away. And ridiculous as it is, I can't shake the persistent, needling feeling that I've forgottne something, or missed something, or lost something forever."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Sometimes I feel like she deserves a best friend who is just a little more special. Once Hana told me that she likes me because I'm for real -- because I really feel things. But that's the whole problem: how much I feel things."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"It was like she had dropped away for a second -- my best friend, my only real friend -- and in her place was a stranger. That's what's been happening all this time: Hana has been morphing into a stranger. A sharp blade of sadness goes through me, deep and quick. I guess it was bound to happen eventually. I've always known it would. Everyone you trust, everyone you think you can count on, will eventually disappoint you. When left to their own devices, people lie and keep secrets and change and disappear, some behind a different face or personality, some behind dense early morning fog, beyond a cliff."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Most things, even the greatest movements on earth, have their beginnings in something small. An earthquake that shatters a city might begin with a tremor, a tremble, a breath. Music begins with a vibration. ... the second time my world exploded it was also because of a word. A word that worked its way out of my throat and danced onto and out of my lips before I could think about it or stop it. The question was: Will you meet me tomorrow? And the word was: Yes."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Sometimes I feel like if you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you -- sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for as second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"I'll tell you another secret, this one for your own good. You may think the past has something to tell you. You may think that you should listen, should strain to make out its whispers, should bend over backward, stoop down low to hear its voice breathed up from the ground, from the dead places. You may think there's something in it for you, something to understand or make sense of. But iI know the truth: I know from the nights of coldness. I know the past will drag you backward ad down, have you snatching at whispers of the wind and the gibberish of trees rubbing together trying to decipher some code, trying to piece together what was broken. It's hopeless. That past is nothing but a weight. It will build inside of you like stone. Take it from me: If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it tugging at your back and running its fingers up your spine, the best thing to do -- the only thing -- run."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"'Why me?' I don't mean to ask it, but the words slide out. 'I'm nobody ...' I want to say, I'm nobody special, but the words dry up in my mouth. This is what I imagine it feels like to climb to the top of a mountain, where the air is so thin you can inhale and inhale and inhale and still feel like you can't take a breath. Alex doesn't answer and I realize he doesn't have an answer, just like I suspected -- there's no reason for it at all. he's picked me at random, as a joke, or because he knew I'd be too scared to tell on him."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Love will turn the whole world into something greater than itself. Even the dump, shimmering in the heat, an enormous mound of scrap metal and melting plastic and stinking things, seems strange and miraculous, like some alien world transported to earth. In the morning light the seagulls perched on the roof of city hall look like they've been coated in thick white paint; as they light up against the pale blue sky I think I've never seen anything so sharp and clear and pretty in my life. Rainstorms are incredible: falling shards of glass, the air full of diamonds. The wind whisper's Alex's name and the ocean repeats it; the swaying trees make me think of dancing."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"Snapshots, moments, mere seconds: as fragile and beautiful and hopeless as a single butterfly, flapping on against a gathering wind."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

"One of the strangest things about life is that it will chug on, blind and oblivious, even as your private world -- your little carved-out sphere -- is twisting and morphing, even breaking apart."
-from Delirium (Delirium Book #1) by Lauren Oliver

to this day, I do not understand what this boy was up to.

"I was walking home from middle school past a place called the World's Largest Aquarium -- which, legally, I don't know how they could call it that, because it was obviously an average-sized aquarium. Maybe I should start referring to myself as World's Tallest Man and see how that goes."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"I took a job as the night box office manager at Summer Showtime because my eleventh-grade boyfriend said we'd have fun there. He promptly broke up with me to date a hot blonde dancer girl to whom he is now married, God bless us every one. I should have known he and I weren't going to make it when for my seventeenth birthday he gave me a box of microwave popcorn and a used battery tester. You know, to test batteries before I put them in my Walkman. Like you give someone when you're in love."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"I don't remember how we first came to be making out in a car, but it was awesome so I kept doing it. Should it have been a 'red flag' to me that these incidents would only take place under the cover of night, in the back driveway behind my on-campus housing? Absolutely. Was it 'not great' that there was never any actual 'date' before these events and that it was a secret? Of course."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"[He] would take a pretty date to the party while I attended with friends, and then he'd pick me up later for car sports. Sometimes we would just drive around. ... To this day, I do not understand what this boy was up to. Was it a control experiment to see how much boring nothingness I would put up with before we finally made out? Possibly."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"I have a uniquely German capacity to vacillate between sentimentality and coldness."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

This next quote is also from Bossypants. It's Tina Fey's response to one of her negative fan mails ...

From Dlisted.com
Posted by Centaurious on Monday, 9/21/2009, 2:08 a.m.
"Tina Fey is an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll."

Dear Centaurious,

First let me say how inspiring it is that you have learned to use a computer.

I had for our correspondence to be confrontational, but you have offended me deeply. To say that I'm an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair. I'll leave it for others to say if I'm the best, but I am certainly one of the most dedicated trolls guarding bridges today. I always ask three questions, at least who of which are riddles.

As for "ugly, pear-shaped, and bitchy"? I prefer the terms "off-beat, business class-assed, and exhausted," but I'll take what I can get. There's no such thing as bad press!

Now go to bed, you crazy night owl! You have to be at NASA early in the morning. So they can look for your penis with the Hubble telescope.

Affectionately, 
Tina

"My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"My proudest moment as a child was the time I beat my uncle Pierre at Scrabble with the seven-letter word FARTING."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f***ing life."
-from Bossypants by Tina Fey

"You're an artist ... That means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy -- just different."
-from City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

"The only time people turned to watch her go by was when she hurtled past them as she fell downstairs."
-from City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Demons come from other worlds. They're interdimensional parasites. They come to a world and use it up. They can't build, just destroy -- they can't make, only use. They drain a place to ashes and when it's dead, they move on to the next one."
-from City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

"If you insisting on disavowing that which is ugly about what you do ... you will never learn from your mistakes."
-from City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

"To draw something is to try to capture it forever ... If you really love something, you never try to keep it the way it is forever. You have to let it be free to change."
-from City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments #2) by Cassandra Clare

"L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. ... It means ... that love is the most powerful force in the world. That love can do anything."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare

"She knew how breakups went from hearing other girls complain about them. First the pulling away, the gradual refusal to return notes or phone calls. The vague messages saying nothing was wrong, that the other person just wanted a little space. Then the speech about how 'It's not you, it's me.' Then the crying part. She'd never thought any of that would ever apply to her and Jace. What they had wasn't ordinary, or subject to the ordinary rules of relationships and breakups. They belonged to each other totally, and always would, that was that. But maybe everyone felt that way. Until the moment they realized they were just like everyone else, and everything they'd thought was real shattered apart."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare

"Power is a magnet. It draws those who desire it."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare

"I watch my brothers give their hearts away and I think, Don't you know better? Hearts are breakable. And I think even when you heal, you're never what you were before."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death."
-Song of Solomon

"'All stories are true,' said Isabelle. This had been a tenet of her beliefs since she was a child. All Shadowhunters believed it. There was no one religion, no one truth -- no myth lacked meaning."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare

"You love each other -- anyone can see that, looking at you -- that kind of love that can either burn down the world or raise it up in glory. No, she would never leave your side. Not while she thought you were in danger."
-from City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4) by Cassandra Clare