--Jack Kerouac, On The Road: The Original Scroll
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
--William Faulkner, Requiem For A Nun
It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.
--John Steinbeck, The Winter Of Our Discontent
There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.
--Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
Something has spoken to me in the night, and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "Death is to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth.
--Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again
Words, words, words, a million million words circle in my head like hawks, waiting to dive onto the page to rend and tear the only two words I want to write.
Why me?
--Christopher Moore, The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal