143 Novel Quotes

For avid readers and literature enthusiasts alike, there's nothing quite as exhilarating as stumbling upon a line in a novel that resonates deeply, evoking powerful emotions or drawing unforgettable imagery. These moments, encapsulated in a few deftly crafted words, have the power to linger in our minds long after we've turned the final page. In this post, we've gathered a curated collection of the top 143 novel quotes that capture the essence of some of the most beloved and impactful stories ever told. Whether you're seeking inspiration, wisdom, or a reminder of the beauty of the written word, these quotes promise to ignite your imagination and perhaps even prompt a revisit to some literary treasures. Dive in and rediscover the magic of novels through these timeless excerpts.

1. “I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.” - Mario Puzo

2. “As a rule of thumb, it was always safer if the Commander-in-Chief formulated a risky plan.” - Rowena Cherry

3. “A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.” - Yevgeny Zamyatin

4. “Talking about ideas for a novel is a bit like showing pictures of the ultrasound if you're pregnant. Until they're out in the world, they can only be wonderful to you.” - Clare Boylan

5. “And when her lips met mine, I knew that I could live to be a hundred and visit every country in the world, but nothing would ever compare to that single moment when I first kissed the girl of my dreams and knew that my love would last forever.” - Nicholas Sparks

6. “It began with a perfect plan. Shape-wise we had a circle, a simple uncomplicated curve to guide us comfortably from one thing to another, an easy predictable ride promising a natural progression from A to B, C and D, and so on until we reached our destination. But somewhere down that smooth line, I think around F, it all went pear-shaped.” - Ivana Hruba

7. “The novel cannot submit to authority.” - Julian Gough

8. “Be quick, but don't hurry.” - John Wooden

9. “For a moment, I wondered how different my life would have been had they been my parents, but I shook the thought away. I knew my father had done the best he could, and I had no regrets about the way I'd turned out. Regrets about the journey, maybe, but not the destination. Because however it had happened, I'd somehow ended up eating shrimp in a dingy downtown shack with a girl that I already knew I'd never forget.” - Nicholas Sparks

10. “It was disconcerting that being in love felt lonelier than lonelines.” - Emily Maguire

11. “The use of imaginative fiction is to deepen your understanding of your world, and your fellow men, and your own feelings, and your destiny.” - Ursula K. Le Guin

12. “Madam Kluger, pufoasă, apretată şi cu genele atât de albe încât par pudrate cu zahăr, îmi face un cornet artistic [...]” - Rodica Ojog - Brasoveanu

13. “Relate comic things in pompous fashion. Irregularity, in other words the unexpected, the surprising, the astonishing, are essential to and characteristic of beauty. Two fundamental literary qualities: supernaturalism and irony. The blend of the grotesque and the tragic are attractive to the mind, as is discord to blasé ears. Imagine a canvas for a lyrical, magical farce, for a pantomime, and translate it into a serious novel. Drown the whole thing in an abnormal, dreamy atmosphere, in the atmosphere of great days … the region of pure poetry.” - Charles Baudelaire

14. “A novel does not assert anything, a novel poses questions... The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. When Don Quixote went out into the world, that world turned into a mystery before his eyes. That is the legacy of the first European novel to the entire subsequent history of the novel. The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude.” - Milan Kundera

15. “Isn't post-modernism really one big cover-up for the failure of the French to write a truly interesting novel ever since a sports car ate Albert Camus?” - John Leonard

16. “My head’ll explode if I continue with this escapism.” - Jess C. Scott

17. “He looks out the window at the falling snow, then turns and takes his wife in his arms, feeling grateful to be here even as he wonders what he is going to do with his life in strictly practical terms. For years he had trained himself to do one thing, and he did it well, but he doesn't know whether he wants to keep doing it for the rest of his life, for that matter, whether anyone will let him. He is still worrying when they go to bed.Feeling his wife's head nesting in the pillow below his shoulder, he is almost certain that they will find ways to manage. They've been learning to get by with less, and they'll keep learning. It seems to him as if they're taking a course in loss lately. And as he feels himself falling asleep he has an insight he believes is important, which he hopes he will remember in the morning, although it is one of those thoughts that seldom survive translation to the language of daylight hours: knowing that whatever plenty befalls them together or separately in the future, they will become more and more intimate with loss as the years accumulate, friends dying or slipping away undramatically into the crowded past, memory itself finally flickering and growing treacherous toward the end; knowing that even the children who may be in their future will eventually school them in the pain of growth and separation, as their own parents and mentors die off and leave them alone in the world, shivering at the dark threshold.” - Jay Mcinerney

18. “تضع يديها على كتفي وتضغطني إلى الأسفل طالبةً مني أن أتربع على الأرض. أستجيب من دون أن أعرف مرادها. تجلس فوقي وتضع أصابعهاعلى قرعة رأسي. تبدو برأسها كالدجاجة المنحنية على صوص. "وْلُك شو عم تعملي، ليش مركّزة براسي متل البسينات؟" تضحك. "ولُك روق"، تقول. "عندك شاميّة كبيرة هون. نابقة لبرات راسك. منيح اللي ما جرحك الحلاق وهوي عم يحلقلك راسك". "وين وين؟"، أسألها. تستمر بالضحك. "ولُكْ ما بتعرف إنو عندك شامية؟ حدن ما بيعرف راسو؟" تنهض وهي تضحك عائدة إلى كمبيوترها، وأبقى أنا أكتشف رأسي لأول مرة. ” - هلال شومان

19. “ لم يُكتب قط نصٌ في الدنيا إلا وكان له موسيقاه الخلفية.” - هلال شومان

20. “bla..bla..” - aisya sofea

21. “Qu'est-ce que le roman, en effet, sinon cet univers où l'action trouve sa forme, où les mots de la fin sont prononcés, les êtres livrés aux êtres, où toute vie prend le visage du destin. Le monde romanesque n'est que la correction de ce monde-ci, suivant le désir profond de l'homme. Car il s'agit bien du même monde. La souffrance est la même, le mensonge et l'amour. Les héros ont notre langage, nos faiblesses, nos forces. Leur univers n'est ni plus beau ni plus édifiant que le nôtre. Mais eux, du moins, courent jusqu'au bout de leur destin, et il n'est même jamais de si bouleversants héros que ceux qui vont jusqu'à l'extrémité de leur passion.[...] Voici donc un monde imaginaire, mais créé par la correction de celui-ci, un monde où la douleur peut, si elle le veut, durer jusqu'à la mort, où les passions ne sont jamais distraites, où les êtres sont livrés à l'idée fixe et toujours présents les uns aux autres. L'homme s'y donne enfin à lui-même la forme et la limite apaisante qu'il poursuit en vain dans sa condition. Le roman fabrique du destin sur mesure. C'est ainsi qu'il concurrence la création et qu'il triomphe, provisoirement, de la mort.” - Albert Camus

22. “You have to wait for your mind to catch up with whatever it is it’s working on; then you can write a novel.” - James M. Cain

23. “Seorang novelis sebaiknya menciptakan “sebuah wilayah di mana tak seorang pun memiliki kebenaran...tapi di mana setiap orang punya hak untuk dimengerti” - Goenawan Mohamad

24. “You can't really succeed with a novel anyway; they're too big. It's like city planning. You can't plan a perfect city because there's too much going on that you can't take into account. You can, however, write a perfect sentence now and then. I have.” - Gore Vidal

25. “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something(All The King's Men)” - Robert Penn Warren

26. “Yet losing him seemed unbearable. He was the one she loved, the one she would always love, and as he leaned in to kiss her, she gave herself over to him. While he held her close, she ran her hands over his shoulders and back, feeling the strength in his arms. She knew he’d wanted more in their relationship than she’d been willing to offer, but here and now, she suddenly knew she had no other choice. There was only this moment, and it was theirs.” - Nicholas Sparks

27. “When you're younger you're so happy to get some good loving you convince yourself you're in love, can't live with out it, and chase the dick like a crack addict after the pipe, or chase the bad sex hoping something happened to the man over night and the next time it'll be good.” - Jill Nelson

28. “If writers only dared to dare, a Suetonius or a Tacitus of the Novel could exist, for the Novel is essentially the history of manners, turned into a story and a play, as is History itself often enough. And there is no other difference than this: that the one, the Novel, cloaks its manners under the disguise of invented characters, while the other, History, provides names and addresses. Only, the Novel probes much deeper than history. It has an ideal, and History has none; it is limited by reality. The Novel also holds the stage much longer. ("A Woman's Vengeance")” - Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly

29. “A novel takes the courage of a marathon runner, and as long as you have to run, you might as well be a winning marathon runner. Serendipity and blind faith faith in yourself won't hurt a thing. All the bastards in the world will snicker and sneer because they haven't the talent to zip up their flies by themselves. To hell with them, particularly the critics. Stand in there, son, no matter how badly you are battered and hurt.” - Leon Uris

30. “Millions cheer the warriorspilling blood across the ringwhile the one who stands for peaceis ridiculed and shamed.Must hearts forever sufferfrom ignorance and greed?Can bombs heal our soulsor set our spirits free?” - Aberjhani

31. “Suffering is tossed by handfuls over the multitudes, with most of it falling on some people and little or none of it on others.” - José Luis Peixoto

32. “V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for “your loved one” I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.” - Jess C. Scott

33. “Maybe you could be mine / or maybe we’ll be entwined / aimless in this sexless foreplay.” - Jess C. Scott

34. “I suppose it’s not a social norm, and not a manly thing to do — to feel, discuss feelings. So that’s what I’m giving the finger to. Social norms and stuff…what good are social norms, really? I think all they do is project a limited and harmful image of people. It thus impedes a broader social acceptance of what someone, or a group of people, might actually be like.” - Jess C. Scott

35. “Temperee, riante, (comme le sont celles d'automne dans la tres gracieuse ville de Buenos Aires) resplendissait la matinee de ce 28 avril: dix heures venait de sonner aux horloges et, a cet instant, eveillee, gesticulant sous le soleil matinal, la Grande Capitale du Sud etait un epi d'hommes qui se disputaient a grands cris la possession du jour et de la terre.” - Leopoldo Marechal

36. “I write all these remarks with exactly the same feeling as if I were writing a letter to post into the distant past: I am so sure that everything we now take for granted is going to be utterly swept away in the next decade.(So why write novels? Indeed, why! I suppose we have to go on living as if ...)” - Doris Lessing

37. “Do we really mean it when we say ‘in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, until death do us part or do we add a silent clause, ‘unless you shame me or disappoint me?’ What is the cost of unconditional love and how capable are we of giving that?” - Deirdre-Elizabeth Parker

38. “When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes.” - Kurt Vonnegut

39. “The first inkling of this notion had come to him the Christmas before, at his daughter's place in Vermont. On Christmas Eve, as indifferent evening took hold in the blue squares of the windows, he sat alone in the crepuscular kitchen, imbued with a profound sense of the identity of winter and twilight, of twilight and time, of time and memory, of his childhood and that church which on this night waited to celebrate the second greatest of its feasts. For a moment or an hour as he sat, become one with the blue of the snow and the silence, a congruity of star, cradle, winter, sacrament, self, it was as though he listened to a voice that had long been trying to catch his attention, to tell him, Yes, this was the subject long withheld from him, which he now knew, and must eventually act on. He had managed, though, to avoid it. He only brought it out now to please his editor, at the same time aware that it wasn't what she had in mind at all. But he couldn't do better; he had really only the one subject, if subject was the word for it, this idea of a notion or a holy thing growing clear in the stream of time, being made manifest in unexpected ways to an assortment of people: the revelation itself wasn't important, it could be anything, almost. Beyond that he had only one interest, the seasons, which he could describe endlessly and with all the passion of a country-bred boy grown old in the city. He was beginning to doubt (he said) whether these were sufficient to make any more novels out of, though he knew that writers of genius had made great ones out of less. He supposed really (he didn't say) that he wasn't a novelist at all, but a failed poet, like a failed priest, one who had perceived that in fact he had no vocation, had renounced his vows, and yet had found nothing at all else in the world worth doing when measured by the calling he didn't have, and went on through life fatally attracted to whatever of the sacerdotal he could find or invent in whatever occupation he fell into, plumbing or psychiatry or tending bar. ("Novelty")” - John Crowley

40. “The men were smashing windows and aiming their weapons through them. The driver had opened the door and was shouting for the women and children to get out and run and hide. But Ilina realized in some vague way that he never managed to actually say the word "hide." He really said, "Women and children, get out, get out, get out! Run and..." The clerk's wife thought it was odd that he had stopped in the middle of a sentence, and even stranger that she herself knew the word, heard the word "hide" in her head when the driver stopped talking.” - Clark Zlotchew

41. “He had a book to finish. Ten-thousand words. The other ninety thousand had been difficult. This last tenth seemed impossible. His plot had become derailed. He was unable to see his way through the smoke and coke dust of a mythical railway track that should stretch ahead. Yes, the characters were there, good and solid. Indeed, the story's engine was strong and had shunted yet forward and forward, with only one or two sharp halts. But six weeks ago he met the bumpers. R. was now stuck in a deserted station, his progress blocked. ("Out Back")” - Garry Kilworth

42. “Then he smiles because he knows deep in his bones that his dad has gone and said something really funny probably. He kicks off his sheet and slides his feet into his slippers. Bunny sits in the living room, slumped low on the sofa, full of Geoffrey's Scotch and Poodle's cocaine.” - Nick Cave

43. “Why else do we write and write except to move our readers?” - Jerome Charyn

44. “Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places she didn’t know were parched.” - Susan Wiggs

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

46. “كل كثير في موطنه رخيص زهيد، لكنه يغلو إذا انتقل، حتى الناس!” - يوسف زيدان

47. “As we stood there, chest high in water, I felt like I was in the middle of my own romance novel.” - Em Bailey

48. “You know what feels really fucking awesome? Loving someone so much that it's all consuming. Telling that person you love them, even though they refuse to say it back. And then finally hearing them say that they do love you, but to someone else. To someone they have slept with. Someone that isn't you. I want to forget I heard those three words. I want to dissolve the images I have in my heard of her with him. I think I'm going to throw up.” - Stephanie Campbell

49. “عندما تصل إلى هواتفنا رسالة جديدة، غالبا لا تكون ممن ننتظره.” - محمد حامد

50. “الوهم أرض رخوة كالحلم الذي لا نعمل على تحقيقه.” - محمد حامد

51. “في اللحظة التي توقف فيها سرب عصافير عن الطيران، كان في السماء نجم يغرد.” - محمد حامد

52. “الحب ذريعة لنتمسك بالحياة أكثر.” - محمد حامد

53. “نحن نسأل عن الآخرين لنخبرهم عنا.” - محمد حامد

54. “كل الأشياء التي يمكن استبدالها جرم أن نبكي عليها!” - محمد حامد

55. “الكل ينجح حين يشغله أمر الجودة ويتقن صنعته.” - محمد حامد

56. “There’s no better way to get to know a city than to walk its streets. A place will reveal its soul through its sights, sounds and smells, and eventually, it’ll teach you its rhythm.” - Henry Mosquera

57. “People have incredible nerve to do terrible things, but never actually admit to them.” - Henry Mosquera

58. “Some things are just like riding a bicycle; you jump on, pedal, and hope you don’t fall.” - Henry Mosquera

59. “A great book increases my heartbeat as if I’m prey, melts my insides in anticipation of a first kiss, immerses me in its depths.” - Carmen DeSousa

60. “And they...LIVED! Life isn't always ‘Happily Ever After’, rather, loving FOREVER, regardless.” - Carmen DeSousa

61. “This place is alive," Sunni said in wonder. "Things are moving. Inside a painting.” - Teresa Flavin

62. “Si tuvieras que elegir entre la cordura, tu vida tal como la recuerdas, antes que la verdadera inestabilidad, ¿qué elegirías como manera adecuada para vivir de un estudioso?” - Elizabeth Kostova

63. “Me pregunto cómo sería el mundo si todos viviéramos realmente como si no hubiera mañana.” - Judith Krantz

64. “El problema es que los humanos tienen el don de elegir precisamente las cosas que son peores para ellos.” - J.K. Rowling

65. “No sé, todavía qué es lo que separa el aprecio del amor.” - Jane Austen

66. “No podría ser feliz con un hombre cuyo gusto no coincidiera en todo momento con el mío. Tendría que participar en todos mis sentimientos. Los mismos libros, la misma música habría de hechizarnos a los dos.” - Jane Austen

67. “Los siglos pasados tuvieron y siguen teniendo sus propios poderes que el "modernismo" no puede suprimir.” - Bram Stoker

68. “El que ella no se lo reproche, no lo justifica a él. Solo demuestra que ella carece de algo, bien de prudencia, bien de sentimiento.” - Jane Austen

69. “Hay tanto de gratitud o de vanidad en casi todos los defectos, que no es cauto abandonarse de ellos.” - Jane Austen

70. “Durante tantos milenios como llevan existiendo, los humanos no han comprendido en realidad qué es el amor. ¿Cuánto hay de físico y cuánto de mental en todo eso? ¿Cuándo es accidente y cuándo destino? ¿Por qué se destruyen parejas que son perfectas y funcionan otras que parecen imposibles? No conozco las respuestas mejor que ellos. El amor está simplemente donde está.” - Stephenie Meyer

71. “God Hates divorce.""He hates cruelty even more."Caring For Eleanor” - Sonia Rumzi

72. “Any self-defense class worth its salt will tell you thatyou don’t pull out a weapon unless you intend to use it.The same should apply to ballsy remarks.” - Henry Mosquera

73. “Laf aramızda, sen neden sinir krizi geçiriyorsun acaba? yani, bütün gücün kuvvetinle çöküntüye uğrayabiliyorsan eğer, neden aynı enerjiyi sapasağlam ayakta kalmak için harcamıyorsun?” - J.D. Salinger

74. “Jika ada hal lain yang sangat menakjubkan di dunia ini selain cinta, adalah sepakbola.” - Andrea Hirata

75. “A good novel begins with a small question and ends with a bigger one.” - Paula Fox

76. “That’s where they found the skeletons. Right where you’re standing.” - Teresa Flavin

77. “I think all artists struggle to represent the geometryof life in their own way, just like writers deal witharchetypes. There are only so many stories that you cantell, but an infinite number of storytellers.” - Henry Mosquera

78. “Someone once told me that we move when it becomes less painful than staying where we are".” - Anne Hines

79. “La gloire, c'est comme la gouache, ça prend très vite puis ça part à la première goutte de pluie.” - Olivier Weber

80. “Beginikah rasanya saat benar-benar bahagia?” - Irin Sintriana

81. “Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much in replay as her own feelings could accomplish, or as his seemed able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject - and when he spoke again, it was something totally different.” - Jane Austen

82. “If human nature does alter it will be because individuals manage to look at themselves in a new way. Here and there people — a very few people, but a few novelists are among them — are trying to do this. Every institution and vested interest is against such a search: organized religion, the State, the family in its economic aspect, have nothing to gain, and it is only when outward prohibitions weaken that it can proceed: history conditions it to that extent. Perhaps the searchers will fail, perhaps it is impossible for the instrument of contemplation to contemplate itself, perhaps if it is possible it means the end of imaginative literature — [...] anyhow—that way lies movement and even combustion for the novel, for if the novelist sees himself differently, he will see his characters differently and a new system of lighting will result.” - E.M. Forster

83. “The human mind is not a dignified organ, and I do not see how we can exercise it sincerely except through eclecticism. And the only advice I would offer my fellow eclectics is: "Do not be proud of your inconsistency. It is a pity, it is a pity that we should be equipped like this. It is a pity that Man cannot be at the same time impressive and truthful.” - E.M. Forster

84. “Why must some of us deliberate between brands of toothpaste while others deliberate between damp dirt and bone dust to quiet the fire of an empty stomach lining?” - Barbara Kingsolver

85. “And so the bird was the end of the man, and the man was the beginning of the bird.” - Autumn Sanders

86. “ليس بوسعنا أن نسقي بيد الزهرة التي نقطفها بيد أخرى!” - ياسمينا خضرا

87. “They all dreamt of each other that night, as was natural, considering how thin the partitions were between them, and how strangely they had been lifted off the earth to sit next each other in mid-ocean, and see every detail of each others' faces, and hear whatever they chanced to say.” - Virginia Woolf

88. “The most important thing I came to tell you is that I want your oath that you will keep an open mind...about everything that may seem impossible.” - P.C. Cast

89. “Monk worked on his remaining Intertect cases at his dining table while I tried to hone my detecting instincts by reading the Murder, She Wrote novel he bought in Mill Valley.I can't say that I learned much about investigative procedure but I discovered that you should stay far away from Cabot Cove. That tiny New England village is deadlier than Beirut, South Central Los Angeles, and the darkest back alley in Juarez combined. Even though every killer eventually gets caught by Jessica Fletcher, I still wouldn't feel safe there. I'm surprised the old biddy walks around town unarmed.” - Lee Goldberg

90. “If you love somebody then tell them how you feel dont be scared of their reaction or rejection life is too short. you should take a chance and if things dont work out as you plan dont worry cuz life moves on and true love will be waiting for you again.” - Atul Purohit

91. “Love is a way of living so how can our souls be healthy enough to live without love. I will continue to love you for as long as I have life because you've showed me the light. I always look forward to waking up in the morning because you're there waiting to love me again with your arms open wide waiting to embrace me with your love. The love I will strive to keep hold on forever. I love you!!” - Atul Purohit

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. “Kenyataan terpahit dalam hidup adalah ketika melihat orang yang kita cintai terluka dan menangis karena kita. Dan kita tidak dapat melakukan apapun untuk mencegahnya.” - Irin Sintriana

95. “I just came this morning and haven't been debriefed yet about the status of our latest prisoners. As a matter of fact, I'd barely stepped inside,” - Elle Aycart

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

97. “We all fight for money, some for power, but most of all for love. But me, I fight to become a champion.” - Jonathan Anthony Burkett

98. “Irma, she said. But I had started to walk away. I heard her say some more things but by then I had yanked my skirt up and was running down the road away from her and begging the wind to obliterate her voice. She wanted to live with me. She missed me. She wanted me to come back home. She wanted to run away. She was yelling all this stuff and I wanted so badly for her to shut up. She was quiet for a second and I stopped running and turned around once to look at her. She was a thimble-sized girl on the road, a speck of a living thing. Her white-blond hair flew around her head like a small fire and it was all I could see because everything else about her blended in with the countryside. He offered you a what? she yelled. An espresso! I yelled back. It was like yelling at a shorting wire or a burning bush. What is it? she said. Coffee! I yelled. Irma, can I come and live--I turned around again and began to run.” - Miriam Toews

99. “I was beginning to understand something I couldn't articulate. It was a jazzy feeling in my chest, a fluttering, a kind of buzzing in my brain. Warmth. Life. The circulation of blood. Sanguinity. I don't know. I understood the enormous risk of telling the truth, how the telling could result in every level of hell reigning down on you, your skin scorched to the bone and then bone to ash and then nothing but a lingering odour of shame and decomposition, but now I was also beginning to understand the new and alien feeling of taking the risk and having the person on the other end of the telling, the listener, say: Bad shit at home? You guys are running away? Yeah, I said. I understand, said, Noehmi.” - Miriam Toews

100. “لا يبالي الموتى بثرثرة الأحياء.” - محمد حسن علوان

101. “Our books are the deepest glimpses into our souls, the most raw and real anybody will ever find us.” - Melodie Ramone

102. “Do you think we can be friends?” I asked.He stared up at the ceiling. “Probably not, but we can pretend.” - Priya Ardis

103. “I noticed him right away. No, it wasn’t his lean, rugged face. Or the dark waves of shiny hair that hung just a little too long on his forehead. It wasn’t the slim, collarless biker jacket he wore, hugging his lean shoulders. It was the way he stood. The confident way he waited in the cafeteria line to get a slice of pizza. He didn’t saunter. He didn’t amble. He stood at the center, and let the other people buzz around him. His stance was straight and sure.” - Priya Ardis

104. “تحبني، فأنا المختلفة وأنا الأفضل، وأنا التي لك قلبي يغص بالأمنيات، وأنت الأمنية الجميلة التي تمنيت منذ سنوات مراهقتي الأولى أن تتحقق.” - لطيفة الحاج

105. “كيفما كان وجهه، سيبقى وجها أحبه.” - لطيفة الحاج

106. “هل تتساءل أنت عن شكل وجهي؟ هل تراه في وجوه النساء؟ أنت لا تسألني شيئا.. كأنك تريد فقط أن تتحدث إلى شخص تعرف أنه يحب الاستماع إليك، ثم تطلب منه أن يدعو لك، كأنني متسولة تتصدق علي بكلماتك ثم قبل أن ترحل تطلب مني أن أدعو لك.” - لطيفة الحاج

107. “أبدا لا أفهمك، أبدا، لكنني كما يقول بهاء طاهر "لا أعرف أسماء الزهور ولكني أحبها".. لا أفهمك تماماً.. ولكني أحبك!” - لطيفة الحاج

108. “قرأت مرة: يسهل على الرجل أن يحب المرأة التي تستمع له. أنا استمع لك كل الوقت، بكل حواسي، فهل سيأتي اليوم الذي تحبني فيه؟” - لطيفة الحاج

109. “أنا نجمة لأنك القمر الذي يحتاج نوري، أو أني نجمة بعيدة صغيرة وأنت القمر وسيد السماء.” - لطيفة الحاج

110. “وحده البكاء والحزن كان يحتضن وحدتي، وحدتي التي وددت لو تخترقها بكلماتك، لو تسمح لي على الأقل بأن أحبك على طريقي، بأن أقول لك كل شيء عني، بأن تتقبل ثرثراتي ولا تتمنى أن أختفي من الكون أنا التي صارت أمنيتي الوحيدة أن يخلو الكون من الناس وتبقى أنت.” - لطيفة الحاج

111. “حتى أن الوهم بدأ يتضاءل، كان كبيرا في البداية واليوم صار ينكمش ويصغر، مع هذا لا أزال متمسكة به.” - لطيفة الحاج

112. “نحن حين نحب لا نتساءل على الأعمار، لا تشغلنا الظروف، لا تؤرقنا الحقائق، ولا تهمنا الصغائر.” - لطيفة الحاج

113. “God is at the helm even when you think your ship is sinking. Just keep trusting that the captain knows more about where you're heading than you do, and eventually you'll get where you need to be.” - Kevin Alan Milne

114. “Looking at the stars is a glimpse of history. Some of the things we see are millions of light-years away. Everything in the universe has a past but stars don't try to hide it. They just keep shinning, for everyone to see.” - Kevin Alan Milne

115. “The gods command that there can be only one king. But I swear that I am no better than a common soldier today, and you are as good as kings. Each man here is part of me. So what’s left for the king to say? Only two words, but they are the two that your hearts want to hear. Victory.And home!” Then his command cracked like a whip. “All together—move!” - Deepak Chopra

116. “«She had Google, and she had Wikipedia. She could look up anything obscure, any words or phrases that she didn’t understand. A romance novel was just a book, while the Internet was the Internet. The Internet would crack these nuts for sure.»” - Bruce Sterling

117. “Why certainly, words possess power.  They do!  But releasing their magic requires combining and arranging those words in the right order.” - Richelle E. Goodrich

118. “finding in motion, what was once in place” - Brian Heffron

119. “If the US is a human melting pot, then Eastern Europe is a scrap yard.” - Péter Zilahy

120. “وربما لا أفارق فراشي وأحلم .. وأحلم أنك تأتين ونحتفل ، وأحلم بأن الحلم الذي كنت أتلوه على مسامع أوراقي يتحقق ، وأحلم أن الغد الجميل أقبل ، وأحلم أن الورد والعطر والمطر وأنا أربعة نمارس لعبة النرد على غيمة ، وأحلم أن أنام . . وتهدهدني الملائكة .” - محمد حامد

121. “I went mad before he did, you killed everything in me. Kiss me,will you. Stop defending yourself.” - Michael Ondaatje

122. “-I think you are inhuman. If I leave you, who will you go to? Would you find another lover?I said nothing.-Deny it,damn you!” - Michael Ondaatje

123. “It’s not that we have to leave this life one day, it's how many things we have to leave all at once: holding hands, hotel rooms, wine, summertime, drunkenness, and the physics of falling leaves, clothing, myrrh, perfumed hair, flirting friends, two strangers' glance; the reflection of the moon, with words like, 'Soon' ... 'do you want me?' ... '...to lie enlaced' ... 'and sleep entwined' thinking ahead, with thoughts behind...?' Ô, Why!Why can’t we leave this life slowly?” - Roman Payne

124. “..Cinta itu sesuatu yang misterius. Lebih misterius dari segitiga bermuda atau puncak gunung himalaya. Kita gak akan bisa menduganya..” - Luna Torashyngu

125. “How I would enjoy being told the novel is dead. How liberating to work in the margins, outside a central perception. You are the ghoul of literature.” - Don DeLillo

126. “Ardo,aku tidak meminta banyak padamu, aku tidak akan meminta uangmu, tidak waktumu dan tidak nyawamu, aku hanya minta tetaplah menjadi seperti Ardo yg aku kenal, tidak hanya hari ini, tetapi juga esok dan seterusnya” - Rangga Wirianto Putra

127. “Sometimes a girl's gotta be bad to be good.Murder in the Dog Park” - Jill Yesko

128. “Two questions form the foundation of all novels: "What if?" and "What next?" (A third question, "What now?", is one the author asks himself every 10 minutes or so; but it's more a cry than a question.) Every novel begins with the speculative question, What if "X" happened? That's how you start.” - Tom Clancy

129. “Beginning a novel is always hard. It feels like going nowhere. I always have to write at least 100 pages that go into the trashcan before it finally begins to work. It's discouraging, but necessary to write those pages. I try to consider them pages -100 to zero of the novel.” - Barbara Kingsolver

130. “Looking back on my life, I sigh. The caprice of youth goes with the wind, I’ve no regrets.” - Roman Payne

131. “The bourgeois novel is the greatest enemy of truth and honesty that was ever invented.” - J.G. Ballard

132. “Half asleep, he wondered whether that might not have been his happiest day ever, the last, perfect day swelling with the immensity of his secret intent, secret creation—the day before everything changed—the day before he realized, for the first time, yet with absolute finality, just how small his private immensity really was when measured against that other vast, dark, impersonal immensity, call it God, or history, or simply life.” - Olga Grushin

133. “Outside of the dreary rubbish that is churned out by god knows how many hacks of varying degrees of talent, the novel is, it seems to me, a very special and rarefied kind of literary form, and was, for a brief moment only, wide-ranging in its sociocultural influence. For the most part, it has always been an acquired taste and it asks a good deal from its audience. Our great contemporary problem is in separating that which is really serious from that which is either frivolously and fashionably "radical" and that which is a kind of literary analogy to the Letterman show. It's not that there is pop culture around, it's that so few people can see the difference between it and high culture, if you will. Morton Feldman is not Stephen Sondheim. The latter is a wonderful what-he-is, but he is not what-he-is-not. To pretend that he is is to insult Feldman and embarrass Sondheim, to enact a process of homogenization that is something like pretending that David Mamet, say, breathes the same air as Samuel Beckett. People used to understand that there is, at any given time, a handful of superb writers or painters or whatever--and then there are all the rest. Nothing wrong with that. But it now makes people very uncomfortable, very edgy, as if the very idea of a Matisse or a Charles Ives or a Thelonious Monk is an affront to the notion of "ain't everything just great!" We have the spectacle of perfectly nice, respectable, harmless writers, etc., being accorded the status of important artists...Essentially the serious novelist should do what s/he can do and simply forgo the idea of a substantial audience.” - Gilbert Sorrentino

134. “عندما بلغتُ الخامسة والعشرين احتفلتُ واحتفل بى أصدقائى، وقلت لهم بصوت سكران: أمهلونى حتى الثلاثين، وفى الثلاثين لم أحتفل وأمهلت نفسى حتى الخامسة والثلاثين، وها قد تجاوزت منتصف المهلة الثانية ولا شىء تغير سوى شعرى الذى اكتسب بياضاً وراثياً جاءنى مبكراً كأنما ليزيد من وطأة الزمن، أكبرُ بلا مجد ولا أطفال، وتقولين يا أمى لا تسأل ولا تزور. أى خيبة تريدين أن أحمل إليك؟.” - محمد خير

135. “Most times, my mind is just an ongoing, present-tense, first-person monologue. It's like I'm writing a novel.” - Andrew Shaffer

136. “Sometimes I still feel that there are two of me: one clean, flawless picture, the other imperfect and cracked; one boy, one girl; one voice that speaks aloud and one that whispers in my ear; one publicly known to have been troubled but be on the mend, the other who has privately lost something to do with innocence and gained something to do with knowledge and adulthood that can never be undone. I feel sometimes there are things that tear me in two directions, that there are two sets of thoughts that grow side by side. But then I realize that I am whole, whatever that means and does not mean; I am complete without the need for additions or alteration.” - Abigail Tarttelin

137. “We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we can’t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When we’re distressed and go to therapy, our therapist’s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesn’t come with plots; it’s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we can’t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.” - John Dufresne

138. “Ia tampak begitu lembut, membuat semua orang yang berkata kasar padanya seperti berengsek kelas dunia.” - Ayuwidya

139. “Aku menutup mata, damai sekali rasanya meski Leon marah-marah. Begitu menyenangkan ketika bisa merasakan ada seseorang disampingmu. Ia akan menjadi matamu, tanganmu, segalanya untuk menjagamu.” - Ayuwidya

140. “Death doesn’t always want your eternal sleep. Sometimes Death just wants your eternity.” - Jacquelynn Gagne

141. “La gente no acepta que se le diga sus verdades. Quieren que se crea sus lindas palabras o por lo menos que uno haga como si. Yo soy lúcida soy franca arranco las caretas. La tipeja que susurra: '¿Así que quiere mucho a su hermanito?' y yo con mi vocecita serena 'Lo detesto'. He seguido siendo esa adolescente que dice lo que piensa no hace trampas. Se me partía el corazón escucharlo pontificar y todos esos infelices de rodillas delante de él. Yo aparecía con mis grandes zuecos sus palabras solemnes quedaban desinfladas: el progreso la prosperidad el porvenir del hombre la felicidad de la humanidad la ayuda a los países subdesarrollados la paz del mundo. No soy racista pero me importan un pito los árabes los judíos los negros exactamente como me importan un pito los chinos los rusos los yanquis los franchutes. Me importa un pito la humanidad qué es lo que ella ha hecho por mí me gustaría saberlo. Si son lo bastante estúpidos como para degollarse bombardearse tirarse napalm exterminarse no gastaré mis ojos llorando. Un millón de niños degollados ¿y qué? Los niños nunca son otra cosa que semilla de canallas y así se descongestiona un poco el planeta reconocen que está superpoblado ¿y entonces qué? Si yo fuera la tierra me daría asco toda esa gusanada en mi espalda me la sacudiría. Si todos revientan yo quiero reventar. Los niños no son nada para mí no voy a enternecer por ellos. Mi hija está muerta y me han robado a mi hijo.” - Simone de Beauvoir

142. “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

143. “She didn’t think that by hanging a chandelier from the ceiling you made a room with a chandelier. She felt you’d made another world, which you could slip in and out of by some vague process of application” - Guy Mankowski