126 Inspiring Fiction Quotes

Fiction has the power to transport us to different worlds, let us see life through diverse perspectives, and ignite our imagination in ways we never thought possible. Within the pages of novels, characters come to life, weaving narratives that resonate deeply with our own experiences and aspirations. Quotes from these fictional tales often encapsulate profound wisdom, inspiration, and emotion, lingering in our minds long after we've turned the last page. In this collection of 126 Inspiring Fiction Quotes, we've gathered some of the most moving and thought-provoking insights from beloved stories. Whether you're seeking motivation, solace, or a spark of creativity, these quotes promise to stir your heart and invigorate your mind. Join us as we explore the words that have inspired countless readers and continue to shape our understanding of the world and ourselves.

1. “Tis strange,-but true; for truth is always strange;Stranger than fiction: if it could be told,How much would novels gain by the exchange!How differently the world would men behold!” - George Gordon Byron

2. “Sometimes fiction is more easily understood than true events. Reality is often pathetic.” - Young-ha Kim

3. “Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it.” - Jorge Luis Borges

4. “Do you know what we call opinion in the absence of evidence? We call it prejudice.” - Michael Crichton

5. “There is no excuse for anyone to write fiction for public consumption unless he has been called to do so by the presence of a gift. It is the nature of fiction not to be good for much unless it is good in itself.” - Flannery O'Connor

6. “I came, I saw, I concurred...” - Darren E. Laws

7. “I will go to my grave in a state of abject endless fascination that we all have the capacity to become emotionally involved with a personality that doesn't exist.” - Berkeley Breathed

8. “Well,' the Goddess said, 'your heart didn't heal straight the last time it broke. So we'll break it again and reset it so it heals straight this time.” - Jane Yolen

9. “In fiction, beauty was run-of-the-mill.” - Eileen Favorite

10. “...one had to expect very little—almost nothing—from life, Aaron knew, one had to be grateful, not always trying to seize the days like some maniac of living, but to give oneself up, be seized by the days, the months and years, be taken up in the froth of sun and moon, some pale and smoothie-ed river-cloud of life, a long, drawn-out, gray sort of enlightenment, so that when it was time to die, one did not scream swear words and knock things down, did not make a scene, but went easily with understanding and tact, and quietly, in a lightly pummeled way, having been consoled–having allowed to be consoled–by the soft, generous, worthlessness of it all, having allowed to be massaged by the daily beating of life, instead of just beaten.” - Tao Lin

11. “Fiction wouldn't be much fun without its fair share of scoundrels, and they have to live somewhere.” - Jasper Fforde

12. “You wanted us all back together again!" Bonnie shouted at Caroline, and pulled the scandalized girl into the dance. Meredith, her dignity forgotten, joined them too. And for a long time in the clearing there was only rejoicing.” - L.J. Smith

13. “But now she could not bear the way she sounded. She was not a person anyone could love....And thus fled to her room. There she wept, bitterly, an ugly sound punctuated by great gulps. She could not stop herself. She could hear his footsteps in the passage outside. He walked up and down, up and down.'Come in,' she prayed. 'Oh dearest, do come in.'But he did not come in. He would not come in. This was the man she had practically contracted to give away her fortune to. He offered to marry her as a favour and then he would not even come into her room.Later, she could smell him make himself a sweet pancake for his lunch. She thought this a childish thing to eat, and selfish, too. If he were a gentleman he would now come to her room and save her from the prison her foolishness had made for her. He did not come. She heard him pacing in his room.” - Peter Carey

14. “In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.” - Lauren Groff

15. “With Catty and Patrick's images in he side mirror waving from the steps of that house like Jethro and Ellie Mae, it occurred to me that something extraordinary had happened. I had effortlessly found a place of acceptance -- a place where people had taken me for me, not for what I could give them -- and I had left it.” - Linda Leigh hargrove

16. “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” - Robert Jordan

17. “Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of fiction and love.” - Benjamin Disraeli

18. “The other raised his club and attacked L, who inexpliciably fell over on his back like an overturned frog.” - Tsugumi Ohba

19. “Martin, at my age, eroticism is reduced to enjoying caramel custard and looking at widows' necks.” - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

20. “It’s not the word made flesh we want in writing, in poetry and fiction, but the flesh made word” - William Gass

21. “HATE is the shortest of human emotions, it is stronger than love, more compelling than lust. Page 30. THE SCALPEL – GAME BENEATH (www.hsrissam.com” - H.S. Rissam

22. “We don't read novels to have an experience like life. Heck, we're living lives, complete with all the incompleteness. We turn to fiction to have an author assure us that it means something.” - Orson Scott Card

23. “For the first six months, all whe wanted was honest labor, finely crafted novels, and surf.” - Eve Babitz

24. “Friendship isn't always sunnyside up.” - Jerry Spinelli

25. “So long as we do not depend on the facts entirely, incomplete knowledge is better than complete ignorance.--Egwene al'Vere” - Brandon Sanderson

26. “It did not seem odd to Max that what he had imagined about Stumps was really true, because this was exactly how games you made up worked. Of course they were true. In your mind.” - Pauline Clarke

27. “The greatest enemy is one that has nothing to lose.” - Christopher Paolini

28. “The Worst thing that Good could do to Evil was ignore it...” - Michael K. Bialys

29. “He was a peculiar sight. Tears rolling down his face, shouting to drown the sound of the singing rabbit; he said he needed help, pointed to a chicken, handed over some money, grabbed his parcel and bolted out the door in panic.Boys, thought the butcher.Drugs, thought the woman.Justin Case, thought Dorothea.” - Meg Rosoff

30. “I've been down by the stream collecting berries. Would you care for some?"I would, actually, but I don't want to relent too soon. I do walk over and look at them. I've never seen this type before. No, I have. But not in the arena. These aren't Rue's berries, although they resemble them. Nor do they match any I learned about in training. I lean down and scoop up a few, rolling them between my fingers.My father's voice comes back to me. "Not these, Katniss. Never these. They're nightlock. You'll be dead before they reach your stomach."Just then the cannon fires. I whip around, expecting Peeta to collapseto the ground, but he only raises his eyebrows. The hoovercraft appears a hundred metres or so away.What's left of Foxface's emaciated body is lifted into the air.” - Suzanne Collins

31. “We would be worse than we are without the good books we have read, more conformist, not as restless, more submissive, and the critical spirit, the engine of progress, would not even exist. Like writing, reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal.” - Mario Vargas Llosa

32. “Sometimes when you get older — and I’m not talking about you, I’m talking generally, because everyone ages differently — things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they’re part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they’re not true — why, then you get offended because you can’t remember the first part. All you know is that you’ve been called a liar.” - Sara Gruen

33. “Vampires. Honestly, they're like children sometimes. ” - Richelle Mead

34. “See, the institutions and specialist, experts, you see. Yes, yes,experts, indeed. See, they would have us believe that there is an orderto art. An explanation. Humans are odd creatures in that way. Alwayssearching for a formula. Yes, a formula to create an expected norm forunexplainable greatness. A cook book you might say. Yes, a recipebook for life, love, and art. However, my dear, let me tell you. Yes,there is no such thing. Every individual is unique in their own design,as intended by God himself. We classify, yes, always must we classify,for if not, then we would be lost, yes lost now wouldn't we?Classification, order, expectations, but alas, we forget. For what is art,if not the out word expression of an artist. It is the soul of the artisanand if his expectations are met, than who are we to judge whether hiswork be art or not?” - Cristina Marrero

35. “Come on, it’s an American tradition. Apple soup? Mom’s homemade chicken pie?' She chuckled in spite of herself, then winced. 'It’s apple pie and Mom’s homemade chicken soup. But you didn’t do badly, for a start.” - L.J. Smith

36. “When good Americans die, they go to Paris,' the ghost said, after taking a drag on a small cigarette.But you’re not dead. I suppose the question must be, are you good?” - Karen Chance

37. “Aunt Rosa, a fussy, angular, wild-eyed old lady, who had lived in a tremulous world of bad news, bankruptcies, train accidents, cancerous growths—until the Germans put her to death, together with all the people she had worried about.” - Vladimir Nabokov

38. “Maybe he thinks he can rescue me? No one is that stupid. ” - Kim Harrison

39. “Exactly. When is comes to anything halfway important, you just don't get it. It's amazing to me that you can put a piece of fiction together''Yeah, well, that's a whole different thing.'(from Honey Pie)” - Haruki Murakami

40. “I try to be a good cop. I try to be a good little soldier and follow orders up to a point. But in the end I’m not really a cop, or a soldier. I am a legally sanctioned murderer. I am the Executioner.” - Laurell K. Hamilton

41. “Tatiana: "Why did we spend two days fighting when we could have been doing this?"Alexander: "That wasn't fighting, Tatiana. That was foreplay.” - Paullina Simons

42. “Truth may be stranger than fiction, but fiction is truer.” - Frederic Raphael

43. “C’est moi, c’est moi,’tis I,' I told him. It seemed appropriately melodramatic, though I didn’t know if he’d catch the reference. I shouldn’t have worried. Unexpectedly, he laughed. “Trust you to quote Lancelot rather than Guinevere.” - Patricia Briggs

44. “We have inhabited both the actual and the imaginary realms for a long time. But we don't live in either place the way our parents or ancestors did. Enchantment alters with age, and with the age.We know a dozen Arthurs now, all of them true. The Shire changed irrevocably even in Bilbo's lifetime. Don Quixote went riding out to Argentina and met Jorge Luis Borges there. Plus c'est la même chose, plus ça change.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

45. “Oh I'm sure you're right," Auntie said. "Probably she's just as you say. But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears.” - Arthur Golden

46. “You've a pretty good nerve," said Ratchett. "Will twenty thousand dollars tempt you?"It will not."If you're holding out for more, you won't get it. I know what a thing's worth to me."I, also M. Ratchett."What's wrong with my proposition?"Poirot rose. "If you will forgive me for being personal - I do not like your face, M. Ratchett," he said.” - Agatha Christie

47. “I'm really not up for answering any questions that start with how, when, where, why or what.” - John Green

48. “Then, slowly, my feet settled to the ground. Before I had taken six steps I sagged like a sail when the wind fades. As I walked back through the town, past sleeping houses and dark inns, my mood swung from elation to doubt in the space of three brief breaths.I had ruined everything. All the things I had said, things that seemed so clever at the time, were in fact the worst things a fool could say. Even now she was inside, breathing a sigh of relief to finally be rid of me.But she had smiled. Had laughed.She hadn't remembered our first meeting on the road from Tarbean. I couldn't have made that much of an impression on her.'Steal me,' she had said.I should have been bolder and kissed her at the end. I should have been more cautious. I had talked too much. I had said too little.” - Patrick Rothfuss

49. “But wishes are only granted in fairy tales.” - Simone Elkeles

50. “What came to me later in those dark, dreaming hours put paid to that though and as always my mind led me treacherously back to the bleak and inescapable truth. There was no cure for what one had seen or done.” - Hannah Blatchford

51. “How did you hear about that?''Are you kidding me? So far, I had that runt Kyle-''I hate him. I hate all vamps. That complete toad, Michael-''-tell me you were pregnant by a vamp-''kidnnaped me and-Kyle said WHAT?''and then a member of the Domi shows up and informs me-''The Domi sent someone HERE?''-that you're actually pregnant by the late king of the Fey.''Late?!' Heidar squeaked.” - Karen Chance

52. “Those of us who believe in princesses are often laughed at. But I believe the world needs princesses and dukes and queens and kings. We need people who glitter and shine and make a room silent with their entrance. We need them the same way we need ice cream and soccer and music and stories. Oh, how we need stories.” - Beverly Bartlett

53. “Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it."[Q&A with Larry McCaffery, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Summer 1993, Vol. 13.2]” - David Foster Wallace

54. “There is absolutely everything in great fiction but a clear answer.” - Eudora Welty

55. “Andrew Lloyd Webber's version of the Kool-Aid jingle is at once chilling and evocative. Donny Osmond is brilliant as James Jones.” - Christopher Moore

56. “Everything I know, I know because of love.” - Leo Tolstoy

57. “I think fiction allows us to sit for a while with people we would rather not meet.” - Uwem Akpan

58. “Katherine of Aragon was speaking out for the women of the country, for the good wives who should not be put aside just because their husbands had taken a fancy to another, for the women who walked the hard road between kitchen, bedroom, church and childbirth. For the women who deserved more than their husband's whim.” - Philippa Gregory

59. “Jane woke, stretched, and decided to kill herself. If she hadn’t found a reason to live by the end of the day she would jump from the rig. It felt good to have a plan.” - Adam Baker

60. “The truth is that we all live by leaving behind; no doubt we all profoundly know that we are immortal and that sooner or later every man will do all things and know everything.” - Jorge Luis Borges

61. “I am the Captain of my own life.” - Lexis De Rothschild

62. “Walking out into the night with a water fey was all kinds of stupid. Heck, Kelpies eat people. They may not play with their food as creatively as the Each Uisge, but dead is dead.” - E.J. Stevens

63. “Why should I struggle through hundreds of pages of fabrication to reach half a dozen very little truths?''For fun?''Fun!' He pounced on the word. 'Words are for truth. For facts. Not fiction.” - John Fowles

64. “Orang itu berdo(s)a setelah berdo(s)a.” - Desmond Tan

65. “To read fiction means to play a game by which we give sense to the immensity of things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the actual world. By reading narrative, we escape the anxiety that attacks us when we try to say something true about the world. This is the consoling function of narrative — the reason people tell stories, and have told stories from the beginning of time.” - Umberto Eco

66. “When I began to write fiction that I knew would be published as science fiction, [and] part of what I brought to it was the critical knowledge that science fiction was always about the period in which it was written.” - William Gibson

67. “In the mind of all, fiction, in the logical sense, has been the coin of necessity;—in that of poets of amusement—in that of the priest and the lawyer of mischievous immorality in the shape of mischievous ambition,—and too often both priest and lawyer have framed or made in part this instrument.” - Jeremy Bentham

68. “Ο μυθιστοριογράφος σου δίνει να δεις από την κλειδαρότρυπα αυτά που δεν μπορείς να δεις διαφορετικά.” - Moravia Alberto

69. “Gods, I love this place," Locke said, drumming his fingers against his thighs. "Sometimes I think this whole city was put here simply because the gods must adore crime. Pickpockets rob the common folk, merchants rob anyone they can dupe, Capa Barsavi robs the robbers and the common folk, the lesser nobles rob nearly everyone, and Duke Nicovante occasionally runs off with his army and robs the shit out of Tal Verarr or Jerem, not to mention what he does to his own nobles and his common folk.” - Scott Lynch

70. “There is fact in every fiction and truth in every lie.” - Krisi Keley

71. “The sight of her made him understand why he'd lost his faith in God.” - Sarah Langan

72. “Only death can finish the fight, everything else only interrupts the fighting.” - Andrzej Sapkowski

73. “Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.” - Joseph Conrad

74. “I blinked at him just casually talking about my new sex life with his genie-shiny head, and I knew at any second I would break into hysterics.” - Laura Kreitzer

75. “The woman turns away; one wing blackens like an onyx gem while the other glows white like a bright spotlight. She flies into the sky, leaving the crowd staring in astonishment. Angels fly away in two directions. Half make a black storm of moving, twisting shapes. The other half forms a white-as-snow moving cloud. The ranks are divided.” - Laura Kreitzer

76. “Beware, Underlanders, time hangs by a thread.The hunters are hunted, white water runs red.The Gnawers will strike to extinguish the rest.The hope of the hopeless resides in a quest.An Overland warrior, a son of the sun,May bring us back light, he may bring us back none.But gather your neighbors and follow his callOr rats will most surely devour us all.Two over, two under, of royal descent,Two flyers, two crawlers, two spinners assent.One gnawer beside and one lost up ahead.And eight will be left when we count up the dead.The last who will die must decide where he stands.The fate of the eight is contained in his hands.So bid him take care, bid him look where he leaps,As life may be death and death life again reaps.” - Suzanne Collins

77. “Stacy smiled proudly and he filed the image of her sweet face in the section of his heart he shared with no one else ~ Brian, Song of the Snowman"Mom said if you put ears on your snowman, he’ll hear the music of the angels and sing songs to you.” ~ Stacy, Song of the SnowmanThe sweet promise of her embrace cured the loneliness in him. In her arms, he was whole. ~ Brian, Song of the Snowman He composed music, dreamed of the future, and kept the situations he couldn’t change at bay to the rhythm of his feet drumming on the concrete. Brian, Song of the SnowmanThis was as simple as his life got  rhythm, rhyme, and fingertips on cool keys. ~ Brian, Song of the Snowman” - Rhonda Tibbs

78. “It doesn’t matter what other people think when you’re right - John Cleaver” - Dan Wells

79. “Perhaps the critics are right: this generation may not produce literature equal to that of any past generation--who cares? The writer will be dead before anyone can judge him--but he must go on writing, reflecting disorder, defeat, despair, should that be all he sees at the moment, but ever searching for the elusive love, joy, and hope--qualities which, as in the act of life itself, are best when they have to be struggled for, and are not commonly come by with much ease, either by a critic's formula or by a critic's yearning.” - Bill Styron

80. “Fact and fiction are different truths.” - Patricia MacLachlan

81. “It's not an easy thing to tell a true story.” - Allen Morris Jones

82. “I’m not smarter than you, I’m more knowledgeable than you, and that’s only because I’m older than you. Parents are always more knowledgeable than their children, and children are always smarter than their parents.” - Jonathan Safran Foer

83. “May was the best person I ever knew.... She understood people and she let them be whatever way they needed to be. She had faith in every single person she ever met, and this never failed her, for nobody ever disappointed May. Seems people knew she saw the very best of them, and they'd turn that side to her to give her a better look.” - Cynthia Rylant

84. “Although when there were too many people around- which there certainly were today- it was hard even to remember to say thank you: all those people were like drowning.” - Robin McKinley

85. “You were dancing with Yuki and I looked at you. And you turned away and held her closer. Why did you do that? If you didn't want to hurt me, then why?"He looked away, as though he'd been slapped, but he didn't look guilty. He looked pained. "I closed my eyes," he said, his voice so low and strangled she could hardly hear him."What?" she asked, not understanding."Tamani held up a hand and Laurel realized he hadn't finished-he was having trouble speaking at all. "I closed my eyes," he repeated after a few shallow breaths, "and imagined she was you."He looked at her, his face open, his eyes honest, his voice a song of anguish.” - Aprilynne Pike

86. “There's nothing quite as funny as someone else's misery - Cassel Sharpe” - Holly Black

87. “Vane’s lips tightened to suppress a smile. “Why so hostile, love?”“You whacked me on the head with a ball!”“You deserved it.” - Priya Ardis

88. “Matt was almost completely naked. A tattered loincloth and an ugly chain with a yellow diamond were his only apparel.” - Priya Ardis

89. “It seemed to us that the fantastic can be, can do, so much more than its detractors assume: it can illuminate the real, it can distort it, it can mask it, it can hide it. It can show you the world you know in a way that makes you realise you've never looked at it, not looked at it.” - Neil Gaiman

90. “Sabrina Thomas clutched the leather-bound notebook to her chest and tried not to be impatient as the elevator in the south tower of Texas Hospital near downtown Dallas stopped once again on its climb to the eighteenth and top floor. But it was difficult.Dr. Cade Mathis, the bane of her existence, would reach Mrs. Ward’s room first and then there’d be hell to pay. Sabrina jabbed the button to close the doors as soon as the last person stepped onto the already crowded elevator.” - Francis Ray When Morning Comes

91. “ An intriguing world where vampires rule, only the strongest survive, and romance offers hope in the darkest hours.” - Rachel Caine

92. “To be honest with you, I don't have the words to make you feel better, but I do have the arms to give you a hug, ears to listen to whatever you want to talk about, and I have a heart; a heart that's aching to see you smile again.lines from Love Vs Destiny...” - Atul Purohit

93. “I love you more than depth of the ocean, but I can't let you feel the pain of it...lines from Love Vs destiny....” - Atul Purohit

94. “I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living in me and now I enjoy ever bit of my life and hope best for rest...something beyond lovelines from Love Vs Destiny...” - Atul Purohit

95. “Being a single parent on a part-time basis is tricky to navigate. That is what a racing widow has to do.” - Aly Grady

96. “It is sometimes the minor, not the major, characters in a novel who hold the author's affection longest. It may be that one loses affection for the major characters because they suck off so much energy as one pushes them through their lives.” - Larry McMurtry

97. “A writer is a spectator, looking at everything with a highly critical eye.” - Bernard Malamud

98. “Sais-tu pourquoi tu es ici, un samedi après-midi, au lieu d’être chez toi ?-Non, je ne le sais pas. Je ne me suis même pas posé la question. (…) –Parce que tu es un pro-lé-tai-re !, lui assena-t-il d’une voix forte.” - Fouad Laroui

99. “there are books which you can't tell people about, books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.” - John Green

100. “¡Dios bendiga los tiempos antiguos, en que existían cosas raras...!” - Knut Hamsun

101. “Be careful who you choose as your friends because their bad habits can become your bad habits. Choose wisely...we all have a choice in life.” - Mimi Jenkins

102. “There are moments in my life when I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly what I’m supposed to do. I pay attention to them. They’re my cosmic landmarks, letting me know I’m on the right path. Now that I’m older and can look back and see where I missed a turn here and there, and know the price I paid for those oversights, I try to look sharper at the present.” - Karen Marie Moning

103. “The one-eyed man watched them go, and then he went through the iron shed to his shack behind. It was dark inside. He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness.” - John Steinbeck

104. “Then you look at her and smile a smile your dissembling face will remember until the day you die. Baby, you say, baby, this is part of my novel. This is how you lose her.” - Junot Diaz

105. “Dawn cackles as she guides me through the all-glass porch. Thinner, paler Reina shuffles about behind Dawn, watching as I slip my boots off. Although she tries to hide her hands, her fingers flicker nervously. I place my boots neatly on the floor of the porch beside the other pairs in the shadows under the coats. Music drifts through to us from a distant room – it’s the Beach Boys’ California Dreamin’. Dawn looks at me and I smile – they’ve put the record on for me. Dawn nods along happily. ‘Hear you’re a surfer boy!’ she says and she mimics riding a wave.” - Amaya Ellman

106. “Real life doesn't grant us many of the more than useful possibilities people can come out with in fiction.” - Camilo Gomes Jr

107. “Before unearthing this letter, I had questioned myself about the ways in which a book can be infinite. I could think of nothing other than a cyclic volume, a circular one. A book whose last page was identical with the first, a book which had the possibility of continuing indefinitely.” - Jorge Luis Borges

108. “The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction.” - Oakley Hall

109. “Minds that have withered into psychosis are far more terrifying than any character of fiction.” - Christian Baloga

110. “Suddenly William loomed over him, scowling, snarling and bloody, his suit dirt-stained and ripped. “Do you know. How many strands. Of hair I lost. On my way down?”Whatever. “Math was never my thing, but I’m gonna say you lost…a lot.”Electric-blues glittered with menace. “You are a cruel, sadistic bastard. My hair needs TLC and you…you… Damn you! I’ve gutted men for less.”“I know. I’ve watched you.” Paris lumbered to his feet and scanned the rocky bank they stood upon, the crimson ocean lapping and bubbling in every direction. The drawbridge was only a fifty-yard dash away. “Don’t kill the messenger, but I’m thinking you should change your dating profile to balding.”Masculine cheeks went scarlet as the big bad warrior struggled for a comeback.… “One of these days you’re going to wake up,” William finally said, “and I will have shaved you. Everywhere.”“Won’t make a difference. Women will still want me. But you know what else? What I did to you wasn’t cruel, Willy.” He offered the warrior a white-flag grin. A trick. A lie. “This, however, is.”He grabbed William by the wrist, swung the man around and around before at last releasing him and hurling his body directly onto the bridge.” - Gena Showalter

111. “If he's like any other man I've ever met, it's not my smile he's going to be looking at.” - Brad Thor

112. “People should know better than to be an ass in front of writers. We immortalize things. Lots of things. And we take liberties with character descriptions.” - Michelle M. Pillow

113. “She smoothes the front of the dress, looking down at her hands, at her bitten fingernails, at her big feet in the pointy-toes shoes. This is a woman's dress, she thinks, a young woman's dress. It is not a girl's dress. It is solidly on the other side of the line outside of girlhood. It is a dress that says something big in a very quiet way; it is a dress that is talking to Alice right now, a dress that is making her feel possibilities never before considered, the possibility of perfume and pretty and dancing and boys. This dress is who she might be, only more so.” - Laura Harrington

114. “So if I asked you to wear my skirt and juggle my high heels, you would?” I joked.I could only see Andrew's face in profile, but a grin overtook his earlier grim expression, and he laughed. “I draw the line at wearing women’s clothing.”“Are you sure?” I whispered seductively, nibbling on his earlobe.“That’s cheating,” he said, his breath hitching.I kissed down his neck. “If all else fails, I’ll never rule out using my womanly wiles.”“I refuse to be used as a pawn by my devious lover,” he countered, grinning.I abruptly pulled away from him. “Ah, well, it never hurts to try.” - Laura Kreitzer

115. “He plunged into the foliage, and was swept into a humid, wet world of towering trees, animal chirps and thick ferns. After a few steps, he turned, and could barely make out the village. He walked a few more steps. He could see nothing now except for the thick trees and long ferns and grasses that surrounded him. He was enveloped into the confined space between trees, surrounded by the jungle heat and staccato chirps. He turned in the direction of the village, but could only see thick, dense trees. Hoping his sense of direction had not been muddled, he turned back around to the direction of the alleged ocean, and kept walking.Now the calls he heard sounded more and more strange. How far had he walked by now? The jungle, or rain forest, whatever it was, did not relent, and he kept on weaving into narrow gaps between the sturdy ferns and towering trees, pressing onwards. This continued for a seemingly oppressive amount of time, and he began to doubt his decision. To come to this place. To take a chance with his life, which was going in the right direction. Why couldn’t he be happy with the normal and mundane, he cursed, scolding his own stubbornness” - T.P. Grish

116. “Annoyed?” said Sophie. “Why should I be annoyed? Someone only filled the castle with rotten aspic, and deafened everyone in Porthaven, and scared Calcifer to a cinder, and broke a few hundred hearts. Why should that annoy me?” - Diana Wynne Jones

117. “In relationship there are always two types of person: one weaker and the other stronger one. It's never easier to live being as weaker one!” - Chetan Bhagat

118. “. I felt the sun graze my face as I sped further and further from it all. The only negative part about running was that at some point I knew I’d have to stop. I’d have to turn around and go back. And whatever troubles had haunted me when I left, would be waiting upon my return.” - Courtney Giardina

119. “Tell me a story,' demanded Fireflyer.'Why? Do you eat them, too, then?''Only the ohs and ayes and ees and oos. The Kays are too spikey and the zeds are too buzzzy and the ones with the dots get stuck in your teeth and the esses sometimes slide down inside your vest and tickle.” - Geraldine McCaughrean

120. “I'm a minicamp body in 102-degree heat getting screamed at by the only other man my size: a middle-aged receivers coach they call Bow Wow.” - Christopher Harris

121. “You know there’s this gaping space between us, and if I leaned forward I’d grab Dex’s shirt without ever touching him. You know there’s a three-inch-thick glass wall separating us.Now we know, too.” - Rebecca Berto

122. “The regrets about all she had let go flooded her. Where had all that enterprise gone? All that energy? Why had she never traveled? Or had more sex when she could? She had bleached and annihilated every waking moment of the last twenty years. Anything, rather than feel.” - Rachel Joyce

123. “I never take out clients. It’s bad policy.” He looked me straight in the eyes as he said it. Reaching across for the glove compartment, his arm accidentally brushed my leg.” - Gabrielle Black

124. “For me, at least, fiction is the only way i can even begin to twist my lying memories into something true.” - John Green

125. “The farmhouse sat on a rise at the end of a long dirt road, in a clearing surrounded by fruit trees and ninety acres of pines. It was painted white, and peeling, and some former hippie tenant had painted a mandala on the wall just inside the door with fine-point Magic Marker. I painted over it, but it bled through, again and again. I finally left it there, a pale and pastel version of itself, hanging ghostlike in the hall.” - Marjorie Hudson

126. “From Flood, Flash, and Pheromones--coming soon:In the torrential downpour with water swirling that threatened to pull her down, she didn’t see the voice’s owner. The hurricane had blessed the entire city with a surprise drenching. All weather reports had predicted it to pass over with sporadic rainfall but that didn’t happen. The storm settled over Houston as if it had no intention to move on. Cassie flailed in panic as the roof of her car disappeared under the water twenty feet beyond. She prayed once more that the container in it was watertight. And that she’d see her car again. Then she concentrated on living. Where had the voice come from?” - Shelley K. Wall