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“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“I wanted to end the world, but I'll settle for ending yours.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“What I mean," I (Hank) said, "is that in every book I've read lately, the guys need to be saved by the gals. Every guy character seems written with a healthy dose of stupid, and the only way he could find his way out of a bucket is if a girl character shows him how. You haven't noticed that?" - p. 164, Vanishing Act, by Laura Martin.”
― Laura Martin, Vanishing Act

“It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle

“Deadlines just aren't real to me until I'm staring one in the face.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“Reality continues to ruin my life.”
― Bill Watterson, The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

“If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“A woman's heart should be so hidden in God that a man has to seek Him just to find her.”
― Max Lucado

“If at first you don't succeed then skydiving definitely isn't for you.”
― Steven Wright

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.”
― Voltaire

“The Guide says there is an art to flying", said Ford, "or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.”
― Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything

“There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

“′Classic�� - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

“Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need advice.”
― Bill Cosby

“Closed in a room, my imagination becomes the universe, and the rest of the world is missing out.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

“I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet

“I live in my own little world. But its ok, they know me here.”
― Lauren Myracle

“Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.”
― Robert Benchley

“Books can also provoke emotions. And emotions sometimes are even more troublesome than ideas. Emotions have led people to do all sorts of things they later regret-like, oh, throwing a book at someone else.”
― Pseudonymous Bosch, The Name of This Book Is Secret

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Ah coffee. The sweet balm by which we shall accomplish today's tasks.”
― Holly Black, Ironside

“Sane is boring.”
― R. A. Salvatore

“How is it possible to have a civil war?”
― George Carlin

“Homework is not an option. My bed is sending out serious nap rays. I can't help myself. The fluffy pillows and warm comforter are more powerful than I am. I have no choice but to snuggle under the covers.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison