Blue Book, a collection of quotes, page four of prose

"He considered her words. 'Now we're safe.' What did this mean? Was this the basic principle of domestic life, of the terrible need to propagate one's kid? The human wish, as in a fairy tale, to live longer than one's lifetime, through one's children. To live longer than one is allotted, and to matter. To matter deeply, profoundly to someone.
"Not to be alone. To be spared the possibility of knowing oneself, in aloneness."
– Joyce Carol Oates, The Falls

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price on its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated...."
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1776

"Panics, in some cases, have their uses; their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstone of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered."
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, 1776

"He might have felt like singing if he hadn't felt like laughing, and crying bitter tears, all at the same time."
– Philip Pullman, Shadow in the North

"I wasn't crying — just thinking depressing thoughts, which is what I do instead."
– Heather Quarles, A Door Near Here

"When I write I am the real me."
– Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons

"Most of our miseries we bring on ourselves. And they're the sum of our own stupidity."
– Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons

"When I wrote, I felt better, as if I had remade the world all of a piece, the way I wanted it to be, not the way it was."
– Ann Rinaldi, Hang a Thousand Trees with Ribbons

"I walked into the sunlight, and when I turned back he was standing there in the dimness of the stable, holding his hat in his hand. His face was soft, looking at me, as if he had found something he had lost a very long time ago. And just remembered what it was."
– Ann Rinaldi, The Last Silk Dress

"How can I tell you what that day was for us? Stillness. We were like children suddenly slapped, and with stunned expressions we stared at our radios in profound disbelief that this was happening. That our country had been bombed."
– Cynthia Rylant, I Had Seen Castles

"I know it's dumb to spend so much of my life feeling low. I promise myself I'll do better, then something presses me down and I sit there, and something else presses me down tighter."
– Ouida Sebestyen, The Girl in the Box

"So, do you die young because you're all finished and ready and don't realize it? You've learned what you were supposed to learn, and done what you were here to do, and one day a truck runs you over and you're promoted to the next grade or whatever. You look down on all the weepy people. You say, 'Hey, celebrate. I was in Honors Class all along and didn't know.'"
– Ouida Sebestyen, The Girl in the Box

"Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing."
– Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

"You feel sorry for me, I think. Aloud, I say nothing. The night is spoiled. The lovers are liars."
– Jean Thesman, The Rain Catchers

"What am I supposed to say? That I'd like it, too? That I need somebody I like a lot to hug me tonight? That I'm tired of waiting for life to happen? For something exciting to happen?"
– Jean Thesman, The Rain Catchers

"Ann turned on Niki, searching. 'So what? No, I'm serious and I don't care if it sounds simple-minded. You say, We all die, as if that explained everything. I don't see that it explains anything. For that matter, we all live, which is the same thing backwards. And that's the important thing, isn't it? To live well?'"
– Cynthia Voigt, Tell Me if the Lovers are Losers

"He had the courage to get up and begin anew...As long as he lived...victory belonged not to death, but to him...It is not given to man to begin; that privilege is God's alone. But it is given to man to begin again...and he does so every time he chooses to defy death and side with the living."
– Elie Wiesel, Messengers of God

"Why is it that people don't know what to say when something bad has happened to someone they know? Maybe because they think there are some magic words that will make everything all right again, only they don't know what the words are."
– Ellen Wittlinger, Hard Love