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“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door �
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; � vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow � sorrow for the lost Lenore �
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore �
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me � filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door �
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; �
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"� here I opened wide the door; �
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" �
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore �
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; �
'Tis the wind and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door �
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door �
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore �
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning� little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door �
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven

“Stars got tangled in her hair whenever she played in the sky.”
― Laini Taylor

“It's the climbing that makes the man. Getting to the top is an extra reward. ”
― Robert Lipsyte, The Contender

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”
― Andre Gide, Autumn Leaves

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“There are moments when
the past ceases to be a form
of the present.
Rain and tears
look alike.”
― Etel Adnan, Time

“If you have two friends in your lifetime, you're lucky. If you have one good friend, you're more than lucky.”
― S.E. Hinton

“Salt blood like tears freshens the crowd’s dry veins, and moving in its web of time and harm and unloved heart asks, “Where is my reply, my kin, my answer? I am driven and alone.â€� Their serene eyes seek nothing. They walk by. They move into the future and are gone.”
― Judith A. Wright, Collected Poems

“When we are most, then we are least alone; for are these faces not identical?”
― Judith A. Wright, Collected Poems

“Who will gather the dust to a sphere, who will build us a world? Who will join atom to atom, the waiting seed to the seed? Who will give the heat of the sun to death’s great grave of cold, and deliver the countries of the heart, in the womb of a dust grain furled?”
― Judith A. Wright, Collected Poems

“Language is courage: the ability to conceive a thought, to speak it, and by doing so to make it true.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”
― Salman Rushdie

“I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“Whenever someone who knows you disappears, you lose one version of yourself. Yourself as you were seen, as you were judged to be. Lover or enemy, mother or friend, those who know us construct us, and their several knowings slant the different facets of our characters like diamond-cutter's tools. Each such loss is a step leading to the grave, where all versions blend and end.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world. And never forget that writing is as close as we get to keeping a hold on the thousand and one things--childhood, certainties, cities, doubts, dreams, instants, phrases, parents, loves--that go on slipping , like sand, through our fingers.”
― Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991

“Now I know what a ghost is. Unfinished business, that's what.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“When a reader falls in love with a book, it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced."

[Books vs. Goons, L.A. Times, April 24, 2005]”
― Salman Rushdie

“Nobody has the right to not be offended. That right doesn't exist in any declaration I have ever read.

If you are offended it is your problem, and frankly lots of things offend lots of people.

I can walk into a bookshop and point out a number of books that I find very unattractive in what they say. But it doesn't occur to me to burn the bookshop down. If you don't like a book, read another book. If you start reading a book and you decide you don't like it, nobody is telling you to finish it.

To read a 600-page novel and then say that it has deeply offended you: well, you have done a lot of work to be offended.”
― Salman Rushdie

“A poet's work . . . to name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

“We all owe death a life.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“A photograph is a moral decision taken in one eighth of a second. ”
― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

“To understand just one life you have to swallow the world ... do you wonder, then, that I was a heavy child?”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“Free societies...are societies in motion, and with motion comes tension, dissent, friction. Free people strike sparks, and those sparks are the best evidence of freedom's existence.”
― Salman Rushdie

“The only people who see the whole picture,' he murmured, 'are the ones who step out of the frame.”
― Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet

“How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.”
― Salman Rushdie, Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

“What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

“Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.”
― Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children