“Enjoy the days of your life that are all about doing what you love.”

-A.R. Capetta, The Heartbreak Bakery

Happy 200th birthday to Wilkie Collins!

“A life suddenly changed— its whole purpose created afresh; its hopes and fears, its struggles, its interests, and its sacrifices, all turned at once and for ever into a new direction— this is the prospect which now opens before me, like the burst of view from a mountain’s top.”

-Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White

“No one is perfect. No one makes it through life whole and unscathed. So do not blame yourself for what is out of your control. We are here, and we have each other. That is what is important.”

-Christopher Paolini, Murtagh

“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”

-R.F. Kuang, Yellowface

“Books are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.”

-V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“We’re all so small, and have such little time, unable to envision the majority of the world.”

-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”

-Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Do you ever get that feeling that this is me and that is them? That I am me, and you are you, and that we are separate? That I am here, and you are there? That this is my life and that is yours? That these are my thoughts and you have your own, and they are apart from mine?”

-Kopano Matlwa, Evening Primrose

“Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days have been your sonnets.”

-Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Books are filled with human thoughts and feelings. People suffering, people who are sad or happy, laughing with joy. By reading their words and their stories, by experiencing them together, we learn about the hearts and minds of other people besides ourselves. Thanks to books, it's possible to learn not only about the people around us every day, but people living in totally different worlds.”

-Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“A book that sits on a shelf is nothing but a bundle of paper. Unless it is opened, a book possessing great power or an epic story is mere scraps of paper. But a book that has been cherished and loved, filled with human thoughts, has been endowed with a soul.”

-Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“To tell someone not to be emotional is to tell them to be dead.”

-Jeanette Winterson

“Hurrying means that you will miss out on many things. Riding a train will take you far, but it’s a misconception to think that this will give you more insight. Flowers in the hedgerow and birds in the treetops are accessible only to the person who walks on their own two feet.”

-Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“No matter how much knowledge you cram into your head, unless you think with your own mind, walk with your own feet, the knowledge you acquire will never be anything more than empty and borrowed.”

-Sosuke Natsukawa, The Cat Who Saved Books

“This is not a love story, but love is in it. That is, love is just outside it, looking for a way to break in.”

-Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

“Wisdom is not bestowed. In its raw state, it is the heartbreak of knowing things you wish you didn’t.”

-Angeline Boulley, Firekeeper’s Daughter

“I come from being given permission to dream but choosing to wake up instead.”

-Dean Atta, The Black Flamingo