Give me something to go on, here. What kind of black magic are we talking? elphaba,wicked witch of the west-type stuff or slytherin-type stuff?.

You can see opposition and imposition or you can see an opportunity. As a part of the slytherin house, I choose to see opportunity. If you’ve chosen to see opposition, and I seize your opportunity, I assure you that it is less selfless and more self-serving. In these situations you’ll walk away thanking me, but i’ll be all the richer for reaping the benefits of my choice, while you will walk away never knowing what you could have had.

видишь ли, гарри, так вышло, что в тебе много качеств, которые столь высоко ценил салазар слизерин у своих любимых учеников, — находчивость, решительность, чего греха таить, пренебрежение к школьным правилам. — тут усы директора вновь задрожали. — и, наконец, редчайший дар — змеиный язык однако же волшебная шляпа направила тебя в гриффиндор. Знаешь почему? подумай!
— только потому, что я просил не посылать меня в слизерин… — сокрушенно произнес гарри.
— верно. — дамблдор опять улыбнулся. — именно в этом твоё отличие от тома реддла. Ведь человек — это не свойство характера, а сделанный им выбор.

You might belong in gryffindor,
where dwell the brave at heart,
their daring, nerve, and chivalry,
set gryffindors apart;
you might belong in hufflepuff,
where they are just and loyal,
those patient hufflepuffs are true,
and unafraid of toil;
or yet in wise old ravenclaw,
if you’ve a ready mind,
where those of wit and learning,
will always find their kind;
or perhaps in slytherin,
you’ll make your real friends,
these cunning folks use any means
to achieve their ends.

We slytherins are brave, yes, but not stupid. For instance, given the choice, we will always choose to save our own necks.

You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that.

Not slytherin, eh?…are you sure? you could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that no? well, if you’re sure…better by… Gryffindor!.

You’re a parselmouth. Why didn’t you tell us?”
“i’m a what?” said harry.
“a parselmouth!” said ron. “you can talk to snakes!”
“i know,” said harry. “i mean, that’s only the second time i’ve ever done it. I accidentally set a boa constrictor on my cousin dudley at the zoo once- long story- but it was telling me it had never seen brazil and I sort of set it free without meaning to- that was before I knew I was a wizard-“
“a boa constrictor told you it had never seen brazil?” ron repeated faintly.
“so?” said harry. “i bet loads of people here can do it.”
“oh, no they can’t,” said ron. “it’s not a very common gift. Harry, this is bad.”
“what’s bad?” said harry, starting to feel quite angry. “what’s wrong with everyone? listen, if I hadn’t told that snake not to attack justin-“
“oh, that’s what you said to it?”
“what d’you mean? you were there- you heard me-“
“i heard you speaking parseltongue,” said ron. “snake language. You could have been saying anything- no wonder justin panicked, you sounded like you were egging the snake on or something- it was creepy, you know-“
harry gaped at him.
“i spoke a different language? but- I didn’t realize- how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?”
ron shook his head. Both he and hermione were looking as though someone had died. Harry couldn’t see what was so terrible.
“d’you want to tell me what’s wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off justin’s head?” he said. “what does it matter how I did it as long as justin doesn’t have to join the headless hunt?”
“it matters,” said hermione, speaking at last in a hushed voice, “because being able to talk to snakes was what salazar slytherin was famous for. That’s why the symbol of slytherin house is a serpent.”
harry’s mouth fell open.
“exactly,” said ron. “and now the whole school’s going to think you’re his great-great-great-great-grandson or something…”
“but i’m not,” said harry, with a panic he couldn’t quite explain.
“you’ll find that hard to prove,” said hermione. “he lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be.

Harry had to crane his neck to look up into the giant face above: it was ancient and monkeyish, with a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard’s sweeping stone robes, where two enormous gray feet stood on the smooth chamber floor. And between the feet, facedown, lay a small, black-robed figure with flaming-red hair.
“ginny!” harry muttered, sprinting to her and dropping to his knees. “ginny- don’t be dead- please don’t be dead-” he flung his wand aside, grabbed ginny’s shoulders, and turned her over. Her face was white as marble, and as cold, yet her eyes were closed, so she wasn’t petrified. But then she must be-
“ginny, please wake up,” harry muttered desperately, shaking her. Ginny’s head lolled hopelessly from side to side.
“she won’t wake,” said a soft voice.
harry jumped and spun around on his knees.
a tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar, watching. He was strangely blurred around the edges, as though harry were looking at him through a misted window. But there was no mistaking him-
“tom- tom riddle?”
riddle nodded, not taking his eyes off harry’s face.
“what d’you mean, she won’t wake?” harry said desperately. “she’s not- she’s not-?”
“she’s still alive,” said riddle. “but only just.

You all know, of course, that hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago- the precise date is uncertain- by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school houses are named after them: godric gryffindor, helga hufflepuff, rowena ravenclaw, and salazar slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.”
he paused, gazed blearily around the room, and continued.
“for a few years, the founders worked in harmony together, seeking out youngsters who showed signs of magic and bringing them to the castle to be educated. But then disagreements sprang up between them. A rift began to grow between slytherin and the others. Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of muggle parentage, believing them to be untrustworthy. After a while, there was a serious argument on the subject between slytherin and gryffindor, and slytherin left the school.”
professor binns paused again, pursing his lips, looking like a wrinkled old tortoise.
“reliable historical sources tell us this much,” he said. “but these honest facts have been obscured by the fanciful legend of the chamber of secrets. The story goes that slytherin had built a hidden chamber in the castle, of which the other founders knew nothing.
slytherin, according to legend, sealed the chamber of secrets so that none would be able to open it until his own true heir arrived at the school. The heir alone would be able to unseal the chamber of secrets, unleash the horror within, and use it to purge the school of all who were unworthy to study magic.

Sorting hat: “albus potter.”

he puts his hat on albus’s head — and this time he seems to take longer — almost as if he too is confused.

“slytherin!”

there’s a silence.
a perfect, profound silence.
one that sits low, twists a bit, and has damage within it.

One must command from each what each can preform.

Sergio: [News reporters are asking him questions] How do you guys sleep at night?
Mitch Albom: Most of them sleep with their wives.

You see, you closed your eyes. That was the difference. Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too–even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.

When you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named levine said it right. He said.” love is the only rational act.

If you hold back on the emotions–if you don’t allow yourself to go all the way through them–you can never get to being detached, you’re too busy being afraid. You’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief. You’re afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely.

Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.

Dying is just one thing to be sad about. Living unhappily, that’s another matter.

Lost love is still love. It takes a different form, that’s all. You can’t see their smile or bring them food or tousle their hair or move them around a dance floor. But when those senses weaken another heightens. Memory. Memory becomes your partner. You nurture it. You hold it. You dance with it.

Another wave says to him, “Why do you look so sad?” And the little waves says, “Because we’re gonna crash. All us waves are gonna be nothin’, don’t ya understand?” And the other wave says, “*You* don’t understand. You’re not a wave. You’re part of the ocean.

When we’re infants, we need others to survive. When we’re dying, we need others to survive. But here’s the secret. In between, we need others even more.

Love wins, love always wins.

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. “a tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle. “ sounds like a wrestling match, I say. “a wrestling match.” he laughs. “yes, you could describe life that way.” so which side wins, I ask? “which side wins?” he smiles at me, the crinkled eyes, the crooked teeth. “love wins. Love always wins.

Morrie Schwartz: But you know what I dread?
Someday soon someone’s going to have to wipe my a** for me. But, I’m a lucky man.Mitch Albom: You’re lucky?
Morrie Schwartz: Yeah. I’ve still got time to learn, time to say goodbye to the people I love. And time to teach my final course.Mitch Albom: About dying.
Morrie Schwartz: Not about dying, about living. When you know how to die, you know to live.

We put our values in the wrong things. And it leads to very disillusioned lives.

Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else.

There is no such thing as ‘too late’ in life.

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time.

There are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: if you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.’ – morrie schwartz.

You know anything about this disease that I’ve got here? This Lou Gehrig’s disease? It melts ya like a candle, you know? In my case, from the bottom up.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

Don’t let go too soon, but don’t hold on too long.

No life is a waste,” the blue man said. “the only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we’re alone.

The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.

I remembered what morrie said during our visit: “the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it.”

“morrie true to these words, had developed his own culture – long before he got sick. Discussion groups, walks with friends, dancing to his music in the harvard square church. He started a project called greenhouse, where poor people could receive mental health services. He read books to find new ideas for his classes, visited with colleagues, kept up with old students, wrote letters to distant friends. He took more time eating and looking at nature and wasted not time in front of tv sitcoms or “movies of the week.” he had created a cocoon of human activities– conversations, interaction, affection–and it filled his life like an overflowing soup bowl.

Morrie Schwartz: [quoting W.H. Auden]
“All I have is a voice – to undo the folded lie – the lie of authority – whose buildings grope the sky. No one exists alone. Hunger allows no choice to the citizen or police. We must love one another… or die.”Morrie Schwartz: We must… love one another… or die.

There are no random acts…we are all connected…you can no more separate one life from another than you can separate a breeze from the wind…

When someone is in your heart, they’re never truly gone. They can come back to you, even at unlikely times.

Don’t cling to things, because everything is impermanent… But detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you.
on the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it…you’re afraid of the pain, you’re afraid of the grief… But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.you know what pain is. You know what love is. “all right. I have experienced that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.

So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Holding anger is a poison…it eats you from inside…we think that by hating someone we hurt them…but hatred is a curved blade…and the harm we do to others…we also do to ourselves.

I thought about all the people I knew who spent many of their waking hours feeling sorry for themselves. How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self-pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.

Faith is about doing. You are how you act, not just how you believe.

Death ends a life, not a relationship.

Death ends a life, not a relationship. All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on- in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here.

People are only mean when they are threatened.

It’s very simple. As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed twenty-two, you’d always be as ignorant as you were at twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s also the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

How useful it would be to put a daily limit on self pity. Just a few tearful minutes, then on with the day.

Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.

The truth is, when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads -none of us ever got enough of that. We all yearn in some way to return to those days when we were completely taken care of – unconditional love, unconditional attention. Most of us didn’t get enough.

If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.

Have you ever really had a teacher? one who saw you as a raw but precious thing, a jewel that, with wisdom, could be polished to a proud shine?.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. Let it come in. We think we don’t deserve love, we think if we let it in we’ll become too soft. But a wise man named levin said it right. He said, “love is the only rational act.

When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.

The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.

Detachment doesn’t mean you don’t let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully. That’s how you are able to leave it.

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them too-even when you are in the dark. Even when you’re falling.

Be compassionate,” morrie whispered. And take responsibility for each other. If we only learned those lessons, this world would be so much better a place.”

he took a breath, then added his mantra: “love each other or die.

I also believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely, above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you’ll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn’t.

Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.

Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do somehing else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

As you grow, you learn more. If you stayed as ignorant as you were at twenty-two, you’d always be twenty-two. Aging is not just decay, you know. It’s growth. It’s more than the negative that you’re going to die, it’s the positive that you understand you’re going to die, and that you live a better life because of it.

Maybe death is the great equalizer, the one big thing that can finally make strangers shed a tear for one another.

Tears are okay

[morrie schwartz].

Mitch Albom:
I know I should’ve called. I’m stealin’ time from my boss here.Morrie Schwartz: You missed my funeral! Never mind. You’ll catch the next one.

Accept who you are; and revel in it.

Morrie Schwartz: [describing what he’d do with one day of perfect health]
I’d have a lovely breakfast: Sweet rolls and tea. Then a good swim. I’d ask my friends for lunch, a great lunch. You know, but… A salad or something simple. And then we’d take a walk in a park… with trees, so we could watch the birds. And we’d talk about how much we meant to each other. And for dinner, I’d take ’em to a place that had great pasta. Oh, boy. And a little duck. Yeah, I love duck. Do you like duck?
Mitch Albom: Yeah.Morrie Schwartz: Yeah. And then I would dance. Oh, I’d dance with my lovely partners… till I was exhausted. Then go home, and I’d have a great sleep.

But there’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begin.

The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.

Have you ever lost someone you love and wanted one more conversation, one more chance to make up for the time when you thought they would be here forever? if so, then you know you can go your whole life collecting days, and none will outweigh the one you wish you had back.

The tension of opposites:
life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted.

a tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. And most of us live somewhere in the middle.

A woman’s reputation is her worth… It is the way it is. You may hate me for saying so, but there is the truth. Do you not remember that this is how our mother died? she would still be here and father would be well and none of this would ever have happened if she had simply lived according to the time-trusted codes of society.’
perhaps it proved impossible. Perhaps she could not fit within so tight a corset. Perhaps I am the same.’
one does not have to like the rules, gemma. But one does need to adhere to them. That is what makes civilization. Do you think I agree with every… Decision made by my superiors.

Mitch Albom: I guess I’m just not really a touchy-feely guy.Morrie Schwartz: Yeah, it scares you.
Mitch Albom: Doesn’t scare me.Morrie Schwartz: Yes, it scares you. All this does. Everything we’re talking about… death, dying.
Mitch Albom: There is a reason why people don’t talk about these things.Morrie Schwartz: Hmm?
Mitch Albom: To spare people’s feelings.Morrie Schwartz: “To spare people’s feel…” I never have understood that. How can you spare someone’s feelings by denying them?

Life is a series of pulls back and forth… A tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band. Most of us live somewhere in the middle. A wrestling match…which side win? love wins. Love always wins.

You have peace,” the old woman said, “when you make it with yourself.

Morrie Schwartz: My father was afraid of love. He couldn’t give it and he couldn’t receive it either. Maybe that’s worse.Mitch Albom: Morrie, Morrie, we should stop.Morrie Schwartz: Not letting ourselves be loved because we’re too afraid of giving ourselves to someone we might lose.

Sometimes I see myself dancing, and I think… “Wow! Oh, boy! I don’t have ALS after all. It’s-It’s a big mistake. It’s all part of a lovely fantasy.” But just for a minute. Fantasy is useful. You can learn from it.

Morrie Schwartz: Usually in the morning, you know, before everybody gets up, I get so angry, so bitter. Just, what the hell did I ever do to deserve this? Where’s the fairness? I cry and I rage. I mourn. And then I detach. It’s over; that’s it;
all over. No more. I just look back on how I’ve been feeling and I say, well, that’s self-pity and that’s enough of that for today.Mitch Albom: Just like that? You just stop?
Morrie Schwartz: Yeah, that’s all the time I give it. Start thinking about the day ahead, you know? The people that are going to come to see me, the stories I’m going to hear, and all the stuff I’m going to learn.

Don’t cling to things because everything is impermanent.

[last lines]
[narrating] Have you ever had a special teacher? One who taught you things you may not understand, but who never gives up? Who knows the really tough lessons take a lifetime to learn? The last class of my old professor’s life took place once a week on Tuesdays. The subject was the meaning of life. The teaching goes on.

I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that’s all.

Well, for one thing, the culture we have does not make people feel good about themselves. We’re teaching the wrong things. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it. Create your own. Most people can’t do it.

This is part of what a family is about, not just love. It’s knowing that your family will be there watching out for you. Nothing else will give you that. Not money. Not fame. Not work.

When you’re in bed, you’re dead.

If we accept the fact that we can die at anytime we lead our lives differently.

Why are we embarrassed by silence? what comfort do we find in all the noise? -morrie schwartz.

I like myself better when i’m with you.

Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other people trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too – even when you’re in the dark. Even when you’re falling.

Try to imagine a life without timekeeping. You probably can’t. You know the month, the year, the day of the week. There is a clock on your wall or the dashboard of your car. You have a schedule, a calendar, a time for dinner or a movie. Yet all around you, timekeeping is ignored. Birds are not late. A dog does not check its watch. Deer do not fret over passing birthdays. An alone measures time. Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures. A fear of time running out.

Everyone knows they re going to die,’ he said again, ‘but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.

Morrie Schwartz: I passed a landmark. Remember what I said about someday somebody havin’ to wipe my *ss?
I’m there.Mitch Albom: You’re not gonna expect me to do that, are you?
Morrie Schwartz: Why not? You might be good at it.

One day spent with someone you love can change everything.

The truth is, part of me is every age. I’m a three-year-old, i’m a five-year-old, i’m a thirty-seven-year-old, i’m a fifty-year-old. I’ve been through all of them, and I know what it’s like. I delight in being a child when it’s appropriate to be a child. I delight in being a wise old man when it’s appropriate to be a wise old man. Think of all I can be! I am every age, up to my own.

Sacrifice is a part of life. It’s supposed to be. It’s not something to regret. It’s something to aspire to.

Everyone knows they’re going to die, but nobody believes it…. So we kid ourselves about death…. But there’s a better approach. To know you’re going to dies, and to be prepared for it at any time….do what the buddhists do…ask, is today the day? am I ready? am I doing all I need to do? am I being the person I want to be?.

I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all good things still in my life.

Together, they would watch everything that was so carefully planned collapse, and they would smile at the beauty of destruction.

Alex Steiner: Why?  Why Jesse Owens?
Rudy Steiner: Why?  He’s the fastest man on Earth.

Alex: Son, you can’t go around painting yourself black, y’hear?
Rudy: Why not?

Alex: Because you shouldn’t want to be black people.
Rudy: Why?

Alex: Because I say so.  Ja?

I’ve always quite liked the image of me with a sickle and cape, dark and formidable.  Unfortunately, I’m far more ordinary and commonplace. No one intended to destroy a street named after Heaven-it was a misread on a map.  No sirens that evening. First were Rudy’s brothers.  I read their simple dreams.  Then I kissed his mother.  And stole the meanness from Franz Deutscher’s heart.  Rosa I caught mid-snore.  I could swear I heard her call me a saukarl.  Then I felt her regrets for not sharing more of her very big heart.  As for Hans, his soul was lighter than a child’s.  I felt his itch for one last tune on his accordion, and heard his final thought, “Liesel.

How many times did she have to say goodbye?.

After another ten minutes, the gates of thievery would open just a crack, and liesel meminger would widen them a little further and squeeze through.

***two questions***
would the gates shut behind her?
or would they have the goodwill to let her back out?

as liesel would discover, a good thief requires many things.
stealth. Nerve. Speed.
more important than any of those things, however, was one final requirement.
luck.

actually.
forget the ten minutes.
the gates open now.

Oh, come on, arthur.”
“i don’t want to hear it, andy.”
“jesus christ”
“he doesn’t want to hear it, either.

Max: But, if they come and find me here, they’ll take all of you away.Liesel: No, Max.Max: I have to, Liesel. 
I’m sorry.Liesel: But you promised.Max: It’s for your own good. 
For your family.Liesel: But you’re my family.

Hans: His father gave up his life for me.  And I made a promise to the family, if ever I could help them, I would.  I gave them my word.  Now, I need you to promise me.  I need you to give me your word that you will not tell anyone about our visitor.  Nobody.  Not a soul.  Not even Rudy.  I mean it, Liesel-not a soul.  Understand?

Liesel: Ja.Hans: A person is only as good as their word, Liesel.  Do I have yours?

Liesel: Ja, Papa.  I promise.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

You may find this hard to believe, but it’s the best thing I’ve ever thrown up.

Here is a small fact: you are going to die”
“does this scare you? I urge you don’t be afraid, i’m nothing if not fair”
– death.

Franz: I’m reporting you.Liesel: For what?  Having a diary?
Franz: I know you’re up to something.

Words are life, Liesel.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world.

she was the book thief without the words.

trust me, though, the words were on their way, and when they arrived, liesel would hold them in her hands like the clouds, and she would wring them out like rain.

From the studio that brought you Life of Pi

Her teeth were like a soccer crowd, crammed in.

An attribute of rosa hubermann, she was a good woman for a crisis.

I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race – that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant…i am haunted by humans.

When I finally caught up with Max Vandenburg’s soul, it was this moment that haunted him the most.  For leaving his mother.  For feeling that awful, light-headed relief that he would live.

The moon was sewn into the sky that night.

Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.

A definition not found
in the dictionary
not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children.

Hans Hubermann: Rosa, you cannot blame the boy for dying.Rose Hubermann: No, I blame his mother. 
Dragging them across the country unfed, unwashed.Hans: She was running for her life.

The bombs were coming thicker now. t’s probably fair to say that no one was able to serve the Führer as loyally as me.

Papa sat with me tonight. He brought the accordion down and sat close to where max used to sit. I often look at his fingers and face when he plays. The accordion breathes. There are lines on his cheeks. They look drawn on, and for some reason, when I see them, I want to cry. It is not for any sadness or pride. I just like the way they move and change. Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes.

I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.

Liesel: I don’t understand.  What did he do so wrong?
Max: He reminded people of their humanity.

Courage beyond words.

Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

When death captures me,” the boy vowed, “he will feel my fist in his face.” (31.26).

Rudy: I hate Hitler.Liesel: Me, too.  [Rudy looks at Liesel.  Liesel shouts.] 
I hate Hitler!Rudy: [shouts]  I hate Hitler![The two continue shouting insults against Hitler]

Burn a book.  Go on, burn a book.  Go on.  I’ll be watching-both of you.

She leaned down and looked at his lifeless face and leisel kissed her best friend, rudy steiner, soft and true on his lips. He tasted dusty and sweet. He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers…she did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on…

Even death has a heart.

If your eyes could speak, what would they say.

One was a book thief. The other stole the sky.

How about a kiss, saumensch?”

he stood waist-deep in the water for a few moments longer before climbing out and handing her the book. His pants clung to him, and he did not stop walking. In truth, I think he was afraid. Rudy steiner was scared of the book thief’s kiss. He must have longed for it so much. He must have loved her so incredibly hard. So hard that he would never ask for her lips again and would go to his grave without them.

*** a small announcement ***
about rudy steiner
he didn’t deserve to die the way he did.

His soul sat up. It met me. Those kinds of souls always do – the best ones. The ones who rise up and say “i know who you are and I am ready. Not that I want to go, of course, but I will come.” those souls are always light because more of them have been put out. More of them have already found their way to other places.

Liesel: There once was a ghost of a boy who liked to live in the shadows so he wouldn’t frighten people.  His job was to wait for his sister, who was still alive. 
She wasn’t afraid of the dark because she knew, that’s where her brother was.Rosa: Go on.Liesel: At night, when darkness came to her room, she would tell her brother about the day.  She would remind him how the sun felt on his skin, and what the air felt like to breathe, or how snow felt on his tongue.  And that reminded her that she was still alive.

The germans in basements were pitiable, surely, but at least they had a chance. That basement was not a washroom. They were not sent there for a shower. For those people, life was still achievable.

I miss my dad.  I don’t even know if he’s alive.  I’m not ready.  I want to grow up before I die.

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

Make no mistake, the woman had a heart. She had a bigger one that people would think. There was a lot in it, stored up, high in miles of hidden shelving. Remember that she was the woman with the instrument strapped to her body in the long, moon-slit night.

While ten thousand souls hid their heads in fear, and trembled, one Jew thanked God for the stars that blessed his eyes.

Max Vandenburg: Hans Hubermann.
Hans: Ja.Max: Do you still play the accordion?
Hans: Quickly![Hans pulls Max into house.  Shuts door.  Max collapses onto floor.]

The sky is blue today, max, and there is a big long cloud, and it’s stretched out, like a rope. At the end of it, the sun is
like a yellow hole. . .

The question is, what colour will everything be at that moment when I come for you? what will the sky be saying?.

It’s always been the same, the excitement and rush to war.  I’ve met so many young men over the years who have thought they were running at their enemy, when the truth was, they were running to me.

I carried [rudy] softly through the broken street…with him I tried a little harder [at comforting]. I watched the contents of his soul for a moment and saw a black-painted boy calling the name jesse owens as he ran through an imaginary tape. I saw him hip-deep in some icy water, chasing a book, and I saw a boy lying in bed, imagining how a kiss would taste from his glorious next-door neighbor. He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

People observe the colors of a day only at its beginnings and ends, but to me it’s quite clear that a day merges through a multitude of shades and intonations with each passing moment. A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors. Waxy yellows, cloud-spot blues. Murky darkness. In my line of work, I make it a point to notice them.

First the colors.
then the humans.
that’s usually how I see things.
or at least, how I try.
***here is a small fact***
you are going to die.

You might well ask just what the hell he was thinking. The answer is, probably nothing at all.he’d probably say he was exercising his god-given right to stupidity.

I have to say that although it broke my heart, I was, and still am, glad I was there.

Hair the color of lemons,'” rudy read. His fingers touched the words. “you told him about me?”

at first, liesel could not talk. Perhaps it was the sudden bumpiness of love she felt for him. Or had she always loved him? it’s likely. Restricted as she was from speaking, she wanted him to kiss her. She wanted him to drag her hand across and pull her over. It didn’t matter where. Her mouth, her neck, her cheek. Her skin was empty for it, waiting.

years ago, when they’d raced on a muddy field, rudy was a hastily assembled set of bones, with a jagged, rocky smile. In the trees this afternoon, he was a giver of bread and teddy bears. He was a triple hitler youth athletics champion. He was her best friend. And he was a month from his death.

of course I told him about you,” liesel said.

Clearly,” said arthur,”you’re an idiot- but you’re our kind of idiot. Come on.

Papa, come home.

I am haunted by humans.

Don’t make me happy. Please, don’t fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don’t want to hope for anything anymore.

Where hans hubermann and erik vandenburg were ultimately united by music, max and liesel were held together by the quiet gathering of words.

The only thing worse than a boy who hates you: a boy that loves you.

Liesel: What are you doing, Papa?
Hans: Working, for once.Rudy: I thought you painted signs, not scraped them off.
Hans: Well, the scraping-off business is picking up, Rudy.  What can you do?

Liesel: They’re coming.Rosa: Who?
Liesel: They’re checking basements.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

In my job, I am always finding humans at their best and their worst.  I see their ugliness and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.

She enjoyed the small fragments of pain.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

What was I thinking?  [begins sobbing]  He took my name!  [[Jesus of Nazareth|Christ on the Cross, what have I done?  [Rosa shushes Hans gently]  I’ve ruined us, I’ve ruined us!  I’m sorry, Rosa.  I’m sorry.

She was saying goodbye and she didn’t even know it.

Liesel: Rudy?
Rudy: Saumensch. 
Liesel.
Liesel: Shh.
Rudy: I need to tell you…
Liesel: Don’t speak.
Rudy: I need to say it.  I lo-
Liesel: Rudy?  Rudy, nein!  Rudy, wake up!  Rudy, nein!  Wake up, Rudy!  Rudy, wake up!  Rudy, kiss me!

A small fact:
you are going to die….does this worry you?.

He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It’s his only detriment. He steps on my heart. He makes me cry.

The consequence of this is that i’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. (death).

He stood a few meters from the step and spoke with great conviction, great joy.
“alles ist scheisse,” he announced.
all is sh*t.

Había una vez un hombre bajito y extraño que decidió tres cosas importantes acerca de su vida:
1. Que se haría la raya del pelo en el lado contrario a todos los demás.
2. Que se dejaría un pequeño y extraño bigote.
3. Que un día dominaría el mundo.

Hans, where did you put the flag?  If we don’t find it, it’s going to look like we’re saying something.

A small but noteworthy note. I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.

Death:
One small fact: You are going to die. Despite every effort, no one lives forever. Sorry to be such a spoiler. My advice is, when the time comes, don’t panic. It doesn’t seem to help. I guess I should introduce myself properly, but then again, you’ll meet me soon enough-not before your time, of course; I make it a policy to avoid the living.

She was a jew feeder without a question in the world on that man’s first night in molching. She was an arm reacher, deep into a mattress, to deliver a sketchbook to a teenage girl. (84.25).

My heart is so tired.

Usually we walk around constantly believing ourselves. “i’m okay” we say. “i’m alright”. But sometimes the truth arrives on you and you can’t get it off. That’s when you realize that sometimes it isn’t even an answer–it’s a question. Even now, I wonder how much of my life is convinced.

It kills me sometimes, how people die.

Rosa: Can we trust her?
Hans: She’s our daughter.
Rosa: She’s a child-
Hans: Rosa, we have no choice.
Rosa: He looks like death.
Hans: He’s probably forgotten what food tastes like.
Rosa: And what are we going to feed him on?  We barely have enough to feed ourselves.
Hans: We will make do.
Rosa: Oh, “we will make do.”
Hans: We have always known that, one day, this may happen.  Hmm?
Rosa: We could turn him in tomorrow.  The authorities would understand-  We could say it was late at night-
Hans: Rosa.
Rosa: I know.
Hans: He came to us.  I owe his family everything.
Rosa: I know.

It was confusing pretending to be completely different people, particularly because it had been so long since the baudelaires were able to be the people they really were. Violet, klaus, and sunny did not think of themselves as the sort of children who hid in the trunks of automobiles, or who wore disguises, or who tried to get jobs at the house of freaks.

The phrase “in the dark,” as i’m sure you know, can refer not only to one’s shadowy surroundings, but also to the shadowy secrets of which one might be unaware. Every day, the sun goes down over all these secrets, and so everyone is in the dark in one way or another. If you are sunbathing in a park, for instance, but you do not know that a locked cabinet is buried fifty feet beneath your blanket, then you are in the dark even though you are not actually in the dark, whereas if you are on a midnight hike, knowing full well that several ballerinas are following close behind you, then you are not in the dark even if you are in fact in the dark. Of course, it is quite possible to be in the dark in the dark, as well as to be not in the dark not in the dark, but there are so many secrets in the world that it is likely that you are always in the dark about one thing or another, whether you are in the dark in the dark or in the dark not in the dark, although the sun can go down so quickly that you may be in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, only to look around and find yourself no longer in the dark about being in the dark in the dark, but in the dark in the dark nonetheless, not only because of the dark, but because of the ballerinas in the dark, who are not in the dark about the dark, but also not in the dark about the locked cabinet, and you may be in the dark about the ballerinas digging up the locked cabinet in the dark, even though you are no longer in the dark about being in the dark, and so you are in fact in the dark about being in the dark, even though you are not in the dark about being in the dark, and so you may fall into the hole that the ballerinas have dug, which is dark, in the dark, and in the park.

It is difficult, when faced with a situation you cannot control, to admit you can do nothing.

I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled. I will love you until every fire is extinguished and until every home is rebuilt form the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love you until m. Hates snakes and j. Hates grammar, and I will love you until c. Realizes s. Is not worthy of his love and n. Realizes he is not worthy of the v. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively. I will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from skim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and no matter how I am discovered after what happens to me happens to me as I am discovering this. I will love you if you don’t marry me. I will love you if you marry someone else – your co-star, perhaps, or y., or even o., or anyone z. Through a., even r. Although sadly I believe it will be quite some time before two women can be allowed to marry – and I will love you if you have a child, and I will love you if you have two children, or three children, or even more, although I personally think three is plenty, and I will love you if you never marry at all, and never have children, and spend your years wishing you had married me after all, and I must say that on late, cold nights I prefer this scenario out of all the scenarios I have mentioned. That, beatrice, is how I will love you even as the world goes on its wicked way.

If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, “well this isn’t too bad, I don’t have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if i’m left-handed or right-handed,” but most of us would say something more along the lines of, “aaaaaa! my arm! my arm!.

Literature doesn’t exactly have a strong mental-health track record.

You don’t spend your life hanging around books without learning a thing or two.

Wicked people never have time for reading. It’s one of the reasons for their wickedness.

Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.

I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong. I will love you as a battlefield loves young men and as peppermints love your allergies, and I will love you as the banana peel loves the shoe of a man who was just struck by a shingle falling off a house. I will love you as a volunteer fire department loves rushing into burning buildings and as burning buildings love to chase them back out, and as a parachute loves to leave a blimp and as a blimp operator loves to chase after it.
i will love you as a dagger loves a certain person’s back, and as a certain person loves to wear dagger proof tunics, and as a dagger proof tunic loves to go to a certain dry cleaning facility, and how a certain employee of a dry cleaning facility loves to stay up late with a pair of binoculars, watching a dagger factory for hours in the hopes of catching a burglar, and as a burglar loves sneaking up behind people with binoculars, suddenly realizing that she has left her dagger at home. I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world. I will love you until all the codes and hearts have been broken and until every anagram and egg has been unscrambled.
i will love you until every fire is extinguised and until every home is rebuilt from the handsomest and most susceptible of woods, and until every criminal is handcuffed by the laziest of policemen. I will love until m. Hates snakes and j. Hates grammar, and I will love you until c. Realizes s. Is not worthy of his love and n. Realizes he is not worthy of the v. I will love you until the bird hates a nest and the worm hates an apple, and until the apple hates a tree and the tree hates a nest, and until a bird hates a tree and an apple hates a nest, although honestly I cannot imagine that last occurrence no matter how hard I try. I will love you as we grow older, which has just happened, and has happened again, and happened several days ago, continuously, and then several years before that, and will continue to happen as the spinning hands of every clock and the flipping pages of every calendar mark the passage of time, except for the clocks that people have forgotten to wind and the calendars that people have forgotten to place in a highly visible area. I will love you as we find ourselves farther and farther from one another, where we once we were so close that we could slip the curved straw, and the long, slender spoon, between our lips and fingers respectively.
i will love you until the chances of us running into one another slip from slim to zero, and until your face is fogged by distant memory, and your memory faced by distant fog, and your fog memorized by a distant face, and your distance distanced by the memorized memory of a foggy fog. I will love you no matter where you go and who you see, no matter where you avoid and who you don’t see, and no matter who sees you avoiding where you go. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this, and now matter how I am discovered after what happens to me as I am discovering this.

It is often said that if you have a room with a view, you will feel peaceful and relaxed, but if the room is a caravan hurtling down a steep and twisted road, and the view is an eerie mountain range racing backward away from you, while chilly mountain winds sting your face and toss dust into your eyes, then you will not feel one bit of peace and relaxation.

…you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit.

It is always sad when someone leaves home, unless they are simply going around the corner and will return in a few minutes with ice-cream sandwiches.

I suppose i’ll have to add the force of gravity to my list of enemies.

Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another.

At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad. All you have to do is look hard enough. And what might seem to be a series of unfortunate events may in fact be the first steps of a journey.

Love can change a person the way a parent can change a baby- awkwardly, and often with a great deal of mess.

Tea should be as bitter as wormwod and as sharp as a two eged sword
kit snicket (a series of unfortunate events).

It is one of life’s bitterest truths that bedtime so often arrives just when things are really getting interesting.

But the siblings could scarcely remember when they had been able to relax and do the things they liked to do best. It seemed ages since violet had been able to sit around and think of inventions, instead of frantically building something to get them out of trouble. Klaus could barely remember the last book he had read for his own enjoyment, instead of as research to defeat one of olaf’s schemes. And sunny had used her teeth many, many times to escape from difficult situations, but it had been quite a while since she had bitten something recreationally.

A good library will never be too neat, or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them.

Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but first impressions are often entirely wrong.

Perhaps I should just bury myself and become a diamond after thousands of years of intense pressure.

The sad truth is the truth is sad.

Money is like a child—rarely unaccompanied. When it disappears, look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store. You might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around, with long, suspicious explanations for how they got there.

Summer seems so cold without you, winter is even colder.

We believe in an aristocracy… Not an aristocracy of power, based on rank or wealth, but an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky. Our members are found in all nations and classes, and all through the ages, and there is a secret understanding between us when we meet… We represent the true human tradition, the one permanent victory over cruelty and chaos. We’re an invincible army, but not a victorious one. We’ve had different names throughout history, but all the words that describe us are false and all attempts to organize us fail. Right now we’re called v.f.d., but all our schisms and arguments might cause us to disappear. It won’t matter. People like us always slip through the net. Our true home is the imagination, and our kingdom is the wide-open world.

If you are allergic to a thing, it is best not to put that thing in your mouth, particularly if the thing is cats.

Hello?” violet said finally.
the telephone said nothing.
“hello?” violet said again. “hello? hello?”
the telephone did not answer.

…bravery often demands a price.

For beatrice —
i cherished, you perished,
the world’s been nightmarished.

It is often difficult to admit that someone you love is not perfect or to consider aspects of a person that are less than admirable. To the baudelaires it felt almost as if they had drawn a line after their parents died. A secret line in their memories separating all the wonderful things about the baudelaire parents from the things that were perhaps not quite so wonderful. Since the fire whenever they thought of their parents the baudelaires never stepped over this secret line preferring to ponder the best moments the family had together rather than any of the times when they had fought, been unfair, or selfish.

If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf.

Are you ready?” klaus asked finally.
“no,” sunny answered.
“me neither,” violet said, “but if we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives, let’s go.

Well-read people are less likely to be evil.

The moral of snow white is never eat apples.

A library is like an island in the middle of a vast sea of ignorance, particularly if the library is very tall and the surrounding area has been flooded.

I’m afraid it’s not nonsense,” genghis said, shaking his turbaned head and continuing his story. “as I was saying before the little girl interrupted me, the baby didn’t dash off with the other orphans. She just sat there like a sack of flour. So I walked over to her and gave her a kick to get her moving.”

“excellent idea!” nero said. “what a wonderful story this is! and then what happened?”

“well, at first it seemed like i’d kicked a big hole in the baby,” genghis said, his eyes shining, “which seemed lucky, because sunny was a terrible athlete and it would have been a blessing to put her out of her misery.”

nero clapped his hands. “i know just what you mean, genghis,” he said. “she’s a terrible secretary as well.”

“but she did all that stapling,” mr. Remora protested.
“shut up and let the coach finish his story,” nero said.

“but when I looked down,” genghis continued, “i saw that I hadn’t kicked a hole in a baby. I’d kicked a hole in a bag of flour! i’d been tricked!”

“that’s terrible!” nero cried.

It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

Everybody will die, but very few people want to be reminded of that fact.

It was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the black sea.

If you are a student you should always get a good nights sleep unless you have come to the good part of your book, and then you should stay up all night and let your schoolwork fall by the wayside, a phrase which means ‘flunk’.

Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily.

As i’m sure you know, whenever you are examining someone else’s belongings, you are bound to learn many interesting things about the person of which you were not previously aware. You might examine some letters your sister received recently, for instance, and learn that she was planning on running away with an archduke. You might examine the suitcases of another passenger on a train you are taking, and learn that he had been secretly photographing you for the past six months. I recently looked in the refrigerator of one of my enemies and learned she was a vegetarian, or at least pretending to be one, or had a vegetarian visiting her for a few days.

Everyone, at some point in their lives, wakes up in the middle of the night with the feeling that they are all alone in the world, and that nobody loves them now and that nobody will ever love them, and that they will never have a decent night’s sleep again and will spend their lives wandering blearily around a loveless landscape, hoping desperately that their circumstances will improve, but suspecting, in their heart of hearts, that they will remain unloved forever. The best thing to do in these circumstances is to wake somebody else up, so that they can feel this way, too.

Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.

I will love you with no regard to the actions of our enemies or the jealousies of actors. I will love you with no regard to the outrage of certain parents or the boredom of certain friends. I will love you no matter what is served in the world’s cafeterias or what game is played at each and every recess. I will love you no matter how many fire drills we are all forced to endure, and no matter what is drawn upon the blackboard in a blurring, boring chalk. I will love you no matter how many mistakes I make when trying to reduce fractions, and no matter how difficult it is to memorize the periodic table. I will love you no matter what your locker combination was, or how you decided to spend your time during study hall. I will love you no matter how your soccer team performed in the tournament or how many stains I received on my cheerleading uniform. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every tuesday. I will love you if you cut your hair and I will love you if you cut the hair of others. I will love you if you abandon your baticeering, and I will love you if you retire from the theater to take up some other, less dangerous occupation. I will love you if you drop your raincoat on the floor instead of hanging it up and I will love you if you betray your father. I will love you even if you announce that the poetry of edgar guest is the best in the world and even if you announce that the work of zilpha keatley snyder is unbearably tedious. I will love you if you abandon the theremin and take up the harmonica and I will love you if you donate your marmosets to the zoo and your tree frogs to m. I will love you as the starfish loves a coral reef and as kudzu loves trees, even if the oceans turn to sawdust and the trees fall in the forest without anyone around to hear them. I will love you as the pesto loves the fetuccini and as the horseradish loves the miyagi, as the tempura loves the ikura and the pepperoni loves the pizza. I will love you as the manatee loves the head of lettuce and as the dark spot loves the leopard, as the leech loves the ankle of a wader and as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you as the doctor loves his sickest patient and a lake loves its thirstiest swimmer. I will love you as the beard loves the chin, and the crumbs love the beard, and the damp napkin loves the crumbs, and the precious document loves the dampness in the napkin, and the squinting eye of the reader loves the smudged print of the document, and the tears of sadness love the squinting eye as it misreads what is written. I will love you as the iceberg loves the ship, and the passengers love the lifeboat, and the lifeboat loves the teeth of the sperm whale, and the sperm whale loves the flavor of naval uniforms. I will love you as a child loves to overhear the conversations of its parents, and the parents love the sound of their own arguing voices, and as the pen loves to write down the words these voices utter in a notebook for safekeeping. I will love you as a shingle loves falling off a house on a windy day and striking a grumpy person across the chin, and as an oven loves malfunctioning in the middle of roasting a turkey. I will love you as an airplane loves to fall from a clear blue sky and as an escalator loves to entangle expensive scarves in its mechanisms. I will love you as a wet paper towel loves to be crumpled into a ball and thrown at a bathroom ceiling and an eraser loves to leave dust in the hairdos of the people who talk too much. I will love you as a taxi loves the muddy splash of a puddle and as a library loves the patient tick of a clock. I will love you as a thief loves a gallery and as a crow loves a murder, as a cloud loves bats and as a range loves braes. I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.

I’m not a stranger,” I said, and pointed to his book. “i read the same authors you do.

Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck.

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.

When someone is crying, of course, the noble thing to do is to comfort them. But if someone is trying to hide their tears, it may also be noble to pretend you do not notice them.

Besides getting several paper cuts in the same day or receiving the news that someone in your family has betrayed you to your enemies, one of the most unpleasant experiences in life is a job interview. It is very nerve-wracking to explain to someone all the things you can do in the hopes that they will pay you to do them. I once had a very difficult job interview in which I had not only to explain that I could hit an olive with a bow and arrow, memorize up to three pages of poetry, and determine if there was poison mixed into cheese fondue without tasting it, but I had to demonstrate all these things as well.

Read about things that wouldn’t keep you up all night long, weeping and tearing out your hair.

The next name on the list is ed valiantbrue, which doesn’t have an o in it anyway.”
“o!” sunny shrieked.
“o!” klaus agreed.
“o!” sunny insisted.
“oh!” klaus cried. “i see what you mean! if it doesn’t have am o in it, it can’t be an anagram of violet baudelaire.

There are times to stay put, and what you want will come to you, and there are times to go out into the world and find such a thing for yourself.

People aren’t either wicked or noble. They’re like chef’s salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.

All the secrets of the world are contained in books. Read at your own risk.

Love, whether newly born or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world.

When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived.

It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom.

But this had been a sin of passion, not of principle, nor even purpose.

It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed to love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.

Hold thy peace, dear little pearl!” whispered her mother. “we must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

…if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom…

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

In our nature, however, there is a provision, alike marvelous and merciful, that the sufferer should never know the intensity of what he endures by its present torture, but chiefly by the pang that rankles after it.

There are many things in this world that a child must not ask about.

Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!.

She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness… Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild indian in his woods… The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, despair, solitude! these had been her teachers—stern and wild ones—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.

It [the scarlet letter] had the effect of a spell, taking her out of the ordinary relations with humanity, and enclosing her in a sphere by herself.

In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it… She stood apart from mortal interests, yet close beside them, like a ghost that revisits the familiar fireside, and can no longer make itself seen or felt.

Do anything, save to lie down and die!.

To the untrue man, the whole universe is false- it is impalpable- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp. And he himself is in so far as he shows himself in a false light, becomes a shadow, or, indeed, ceases to exist.

The sorrow that lay cold in her mother’s heart… Converted it into a tomb.

It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom. Each, in its utmost development, supposes a high degree of intimacy and heart-knowledge; each renders one individual dependent for the food of his affections and spiritual life upon another; each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his object.

I have laughed, in bitterness and agony of heart, at the contrast between what I seem and what I am!.

Some attribute had departed from her, the permanence of which had been essential to keep her a woman. Such is frequently the fate, and such the stern development, of the feminine character and person, when the woman has encountered, and lived through, an experience of peculiar severity. If she be all tenderness, she will die. If she survive, the tenderness will either be crushed out of her, or—and the outward semblance is the same—crushed so deeply into her heart that it can never show itself more.

No, my little pearl! thou must gather thine own sunshine. I have none to give thee.

She wanted—what some people want throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy.

We men of study, whose heads are in our books, have need to be straightly looked after! we dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.

She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom.

It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society. The thoughts alone suffice them, without investing itself in the flesh and blood of action.

All merely graceful attributes are usually the most evanescent.

It is a good lesson – though it may often be a hard one – for a man… To step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

She could no longer borrow from the future to ease her present grief.

Janie looked down on him and felt a self-crushing love. So her soul crawled out from its hiding place.

It was the meanest moment of eternity.

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.

Oh to be a pear tree – any tree in bloom! with kissing bees singing of the beginning of the world!.

Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Of course he wasn’t dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! she called in her soul to come and see.

Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

It is so easy to be hopeful in the daytime when you can see the things you wish on. But it was night, it stayed night. Night was striding across nothingness with the whole round world in his hands . . . They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against cruel walls and their souls asking if he meant to measure their puny might against his. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching god.

She had waited all her life for something, and it had killed her when it found her.

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time.

…she starched and ironed her face, forming it into just what people wanted to see…

Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh god, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves.

..she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? she didn’t know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that god tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making.

There is a basin in the mind where words float around on thought and thought on sound and sight. Then there is a depth of thought untouched by words, and deeper still a gulf of formless feelings untouched by thought.

No hour is ever eternity, but it has its right to weep.

Some people could look at a mud puddle and see an ocean with ships.

She didn’t read books so she didn’t know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop.

When god had made the man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another.

She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.

Love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.

Her old thoughts were going to come in handy now, but new words would have to be made and said to fit them.

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the same horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.

He looked like the love thoughts of women.

All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.

So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.

They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching god.

She had an inside and an outside now and suddenly she knew how not to mix them.

Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! she called in her soul to come and see.

She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

It is real, isn’t it? it’s not a joke? petunia says you’re lying to me. Petunia says there isn’t a hogwarts. It is real, isn’t it?”
“it’s real for us,” said snape. “not for her.

Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business. Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git. Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor. Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Yes, it is easy to see that nearly six years of magical education have not been wasted on you, Potter. Ghosts are transparent.

She should’ve interviewed snape,” said harry grimly. “he’d give her the goods on me any day. “potter has been crossing lines ever since he first arrived at this school…

I do take my work seriously and the way to do that is not to take yourself too seriously.

Course dumbledore trusts you,” growled moody. “he’s a trusting man, isn’t he? believes in second chances. But me — I say there are spots that don’t come off, snape. Spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?.

For your information, potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the draught of living death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite.

It would be wonderful to think that the future is unknown and sort of surprising.

Snape’s patronus was a doe,’ said Harry, ‘the same as my mother’s because he loved her for nearly all of his life, from when they were children.

One person. All it takes is one person. I couldn’t save harry for lily. So now I give my allegiance to the cause she believed in. And it’s possible — that along the way I started believing in it myself.

What is the difference, potter, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

at this, hermione stood up, her hand stretching towards the dungeon ceiling.

i don’t know,” said harry quietly. “i think hermione does, though, why don’t you try asking her?”

a few people laughed; harry caught sight of seamus’s eye and seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

sit down,” he snapped at hermione. “for your information, potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the draught of living death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? why aren’t you all copying that down?”

there was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, snape said, “and a point will be taken from gryffindor house for your cheek, potter.

There is no point in apportioning blame. What is done, is done.

Kill me then,’ panted Harry, who felt no fear at all, but only rage and contempt. ‘Kill me like you killed him, you coward-‘ DON’T-‘ screamed Snape, and his face was suddenly demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog stuck in the house behind them- ‘CALL ME A COWARD!

D’you know what that – (he called snape something that made hermoine say “ron!”)” – is making me do? i’ve got to scrub out the bedpans in the hospital wing. Without magic!” he was breathing deeply, his fists clenched.

“why couldn’t black have hidden in snape’s office, eh? he could have finished him off for us!.

Harry potter is dead.

I say there are spots that don’t come off…. Spots that never come off, d’you know what I mean?

Turn to page three hundred and ninety-four.

Orange, longbottom.

But I don’t think i’ve ever known such a natural at potions!” said slughorn. “instinctive, you know — like his mother! i’ve only ever taught a few with this kind of ability, I can tell you that, sybill — why even severus —”
and to harry’s horror, slughorn threw out an arm and seemed to scoop snape out of thin air toward them.

Albus severus, you were named after two headmasters of hogwarts. One of them was slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.

I am the character you are not supposed to like.

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
“after all this time?”
“always,” said snape.

One person. All it takes is one person.”
-severus snap , harry potter and the cursed child.

Look…at…me…” he whispered. The green eyes found the black, but after a second, something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank, and empty. The hand holding harry thudded to the floor, and snape moved no more.

One person. All it takes is one person.”
-severus snape.

Don’t call me coward!.

The — the prophecy . . . The prediction . . . Trelawney . . .”
“ah, yes. How much did you relay to lord voldemort?”
“everything — everything I heard! that is why — it is for that reason — he thinks it means lily evans!”
“the prophecy did not refer to a woman. It spoke of a boy born at the end of july —”
“you know what I mean! he thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down — kill them all —”
“if she means so much to you, surely lord voldemort will spare her? could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?”
“i have — I have asked him —”
“you disgust me.

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.

Thought we were supposed to be friends? best friends?”
“we are, sev.

Look . . . At . . . Me. . . .

Harry potter told his son you’re a great man. […] he said you were the bravest man he’d ever met. He knew, you see — he knew your secret — what you did for dumbledore. And he admired you for it — greatly. And that’s why he named his son — my best friend — after you both. Albus severus potter.

Scorpius: thank you for being my light in the darkness.

I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.

You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon.

Snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at dumbledore.
“avada kedavra!.

Detention, saturday night, my office,” said snape. “i do not take cheek from anyone, potter . . . Not even ‘the chosen one.’.

The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, potter… Or at least, most minds are…

Snape: “did no one teach you to knock, boy?”

scorpius looks up at snape, slightly breathless, slightly unsure, slightly exultant.

scorpius: “severus snape. This is an honor.

Fools who wear their hearts proudly on their sleeves, who cannot control their emotions, who wallow in sad memories and allow themselves to be provoked this easily- weak people, in other words”
“những thằng ngu thì chỉ khoác lác khoe mẽ, chứ không biết kiềm chế cảm xúc của mình, chỉ biết trầm mình trong ký ức buồn thảm và tự để cho mình bị chọc tức một các dễ dàng – nói một cách khác, chỉ là những con người yếu đuối.

Well, it may have escaped your notice,but life isn’t fair.

Talent is an accident of genes – and a responsibility.

Scorpius: a doe? lily’s patronus.
snape: strange, isn’t it? what comes from within.

But this is touching, severus,” said dumbledore seriously. “have you grown to care for the boy, after all?”
“for him?” shouted snape. “expecto patronum!”
from the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to snape, and his eyes were full of tears.
“after all this time?”
“always,” said snape.

Actors are agents of change. A film, a piece of theater, a piece of music, or a book can make a difference. It can change the world.

If people want to know who I am, it is all in the work.

Do you know what I think, Potter?’ said Snape, very quietly. “I think that you are a liar and a cheat and that you deserve detention with me every Saturday until the end of term. What do you think, Potter?

I think there should be laughs in everything. Sometimes, it’s a slammed door, a pie in the face or just a recognition of our frailties.

Karkaroff intends to flee if the mark burns.”
“does he?” said dumbledore softly, as fleur delacour and roger davies came giggling in from the grounds. “and are you tempted to join him?”
“no,” said snape, his black eyes on fleur’s and roger’s retreating figures. “i am not such a coward.”
“no,” agreed dumbledore. You are a braver man by far than igot karkaroff. You know, I sometimes think we sort too soon…”
he walked away, leaving snape looking stricken.

Ah, yes. Harry potter. Our new — celebrity.

That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, miss granger,” said snape coolly. “five more points from gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.

And what will you give me in return, severus?’
‘in – in return?’ snape gaped at dumbledore, and harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, ‘anything…

You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death — if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

But this is touching, Severus,” said Dumbledore seriously. “Have you grown to care for the boy, after all?” “For him?” shouted Snape. “Expecto Patronum!” From the tip of his wand burst the silver doe. She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.

My word, severus, that I shall never reveal the best of you?’ dumbledore sighed, looking down into snape’s ferocious, anguished face. ‘if you insist ….

I wish…i wish I were dead…”
“and what use would that be to anyone?.

This is your copy of advanced potion-making, is it, potter?”
“yes,” said harry, still breathing hard.
“you’re quite sure of that, are you, potter?”
“yes,” said harry, with a touch more defiance.
“this is the copy of advanced potion-making that you purchased from flourish and blotts?”
“yes,” said harry firmly.
“then why,” asked snape, “does it have the name ‘roonil wazlib’ written inside the front cover?”
harry’s heart missed a beat. “that’s my nickname,” he said.

An unbreakable vow?” said ron, looking stunned. “nah, he can’t have…. Are you sure?”
“yes i’m sure,” said harry. “why, what does it mean?”
“well, you can’t break an unbreakable vow…”
“i’d worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.

I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even put a stopper on death.

Whoops – my wand is a little over excited!.

If only life could be a little more tender and art a little more robust.

What would your head have been doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?” said Snape softly. “Your head is not allowed in Hogsmeade. No part of your body has permission to be in Hogsmeade.

Only muggles talk of the ‘mind reading.’ the mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure. Thoughts are not etched on the inside of skulls, to be perused by any invader. The mind is complex and many-layered thing, potter… or at least, most minds are….

I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses…

There will be no foolish wand-waving or silly incantations in this class. As such, I don’t expect many of you to appreciate the subtle science and exact art that is potion-making. However, for those select few…
who possess, the predisposition… I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death.

You see what you expect to see.

Draco, do it, or stand aside so one of us -” screeched the woman, but at that precise moment the door to the ramparts burst open once more and there stood snape, his wand clutched in his hand as his black eyes swept the scene, from dumbledore slumped against the wall, to the four death eaters, including the enraged werewolf, and malfoy.
“we’ve got a problem, snape,” said the lumpy amycus, whose eyes and wand were fixed alike upon dumbledore, “the boy doesn’t seem able -“
but somebody else had spoken snape’s name, quite softly.
“severus …”
the sound frightened harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, dumbledore was pleading.
snape said nothing, but walked forwards and pushed malfoy roughly out of the way. The three death eaters fell back without a word. Even the werewolf seemed cowed.
snape gazed for a moment at dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“severus … Please …”
snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at dumbledore. “avada kedavra!.

I have spied for you and lied for you, put myself in mortal danger for you. Everything was supposed to be to keep lily potter’s son safe. Now you tell me you have been raising him like a pig for slaughter.

Snape: sometimes costs are made to be borne.

Killed?” said hagrid loudly, staring down at harry. “snape killed? what’re yeh on abou’, harry?”
“dumbledore,” said harry. “snape killed… Dumbledore.

Mr. Moony presents his compliments to professor snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people’s business.
mr. Prongs agrees with mr. Moony, and would like to add that professor snape is an ugly git.
mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.
mr. Wormtail bids professor snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.

Oh, he’ll try, i’m sure. . . . the usual empty words, the usual slithering out of action . . . Oh, on the dark lord’s orders, of course!.

But somebody else had spoken snape’s name, quite softly.
“severus . . .”
the sound frightened harry beyond anything he had experienced all evening. For the first time, dumbledore was pleading.
snape gazed for a moment at dumbledore, and there was revulsion and hatred etched in the harsh lines of his face.
“severus . . . Please . . .”
snape raised his wand and pointed it directly at dumbledore.
“avada kedavra!”
a jet of green light shot from the end of snape’s wand and hit dumbledore squarely in the chest. Harry’s scream of horror never left him; silent and unmoving, he was forced to watch as dumbledore was blasted into the air. For a split second, he seemed to hang suspended beneath the shining skull, and then he fell slowly backward, like a great rag doll, over the battlements and out of sight.

Would you like me to [kill you] now?” asked snape, his voice heavy with irony. “or would you like a few moments to compose an epitaph?.

It’s alright” said a dreamy voice from beside harry as ron vanished into the coach’s dark interior. “you’re not going mad or anything. I can see them too.”
“can you?” said harry desperately, turning to luna. He could see the bat-winged horses reflected in her wide, silvery eyes.
“oh yes,” said luna, “i’ve been able to see them since my first year here. They’ve always pulled the carriages. Don’t worry. You’re just as sane as I am.”
smiling faintly, she climbed into the musty interior of the carriage after ron. Not altogether reassured, harry followed her.

I suspect nargles are behind it.

Hello’ said a vague and dreamy voice from behind them. Harry looked up: luna lovegood had drifted over from the ravenclaw table. Many people were staring at her and few people openly laughing and pointing; she had managed to procure a hat shaped like a life-size lion’s head, which was perched precariously on her head.
‘i’m supporting gryffindor’ said luna, pointing unnecessarily at her hat. “look what it does…’
she reached up and tapped the hat with her wand. It opened its mouth wide and gave an extremely realistic roar that made everyone in the vicinity jump.
‘it’s good, isn’t it?’ said luna happily. ‘i wanted to have it chewing up a serpent to represent slytherin, you know, but there wasn’t time. Anyway…good luck, ronald!.

There,” she said softly. “now he could be sleeping.

Wit beyond measure is a man’s greatest treasure.

Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?”
“…i think the answer is that a circle has no beginning.”
“well reasoned.

Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in the ways we expect.

Thank you so much, dobby, for rescuing me from that cellar. It’s so unfair that you had to die, when you were so good and brave. I’ll always remember what you did for us. I hope you’re happy now.

Oooh, look, a blibbering humdinger!.

Hello, harry!” she said.
“er — my name’s barny,” said harry, flummoxed.
“oh, have you changed that too?” she asked brightly.
“how did you know — ?”
“oh, just your expression,” she said.
like her father, luna was wearing bright yellow robes, which she had accessorized with a large sunflower in her hair. Once you got over the brightness of it all, the general effect was quite pleasant. At least there were no radishes dangling from her ears.

I think i’ll just go down and have some pudding and wait for it all to turn up – it always does in the end.

Yeah, but the lost diadem,” said michael corner, rolling his eyes, “is lost, luna. That’s sort of the point.

I enjoyed the meetings, too. It was like having friends.

You can laugh! but people used to believe there were no such things as the blibbering humdinger or the crumple-horned snorkack!.

Daddy, look — one of the gnomes actually bit me!.

And anyway, it’s not as though i’ll never see mum again, is it?.

Bidding the wizard farewell, he turned to his daughter, who held up her finger
and said, “daddy, look — one of the gnomes actually bit me!”
“how wonderful! gnome saliva is enormously beneficial!” said mr. Lovegood, seizing luna’s outstretched finger and examining the bleeding puncture marks. “luna, my love, if you should feel any burgeoning talent today — perhaps an unexpected urge to sing opera or to declaim in mermish — do not repress it! you may have been gifted by the gernumblies!”
ron, passing them in the opposite direction, let out a loud snort.

Which came first, the phoenix or the flame?’
‘hmm . . . What do you think, harry?’ said luna, looking thoughtful.
‘what? isn’t there just a password?’
‘oh no, you’ve got to answer a question,’ said luna.
‘what if you get it wrong?’
‘well, you have to wait for somebody who gets it right,’ said luna. ‘that way you learn, you see?’
‘yeah . . . Trouble is, we can’t really afford to wait for anyone else, luna.’
‘no, I see what you mean,’ said luna seriously. ‘well then, I think the answer is that a circle has no beginning.’
‘well reasoned,’ said the voice, and the door swung open.

Don’t worry, you are just as sane as I am.

All my shoes somehow magically disappeared. But i’m not concerned. They’ll show up sometime – even when you least expect it.

Always be yourself because if your not yourself who are you?
a: someone else therefore not being you at all.

Yes, it was rather horrible,” said luna conversationally. “i still feel very sad about it sometimes. But i’ve still got dad. And anyway, it’s not as though i’ll never see mum again, is it?”

“er-isn’t it?” said harry uncertainly.

she shook her head in disbelief. “oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you?”

“you mean…”

“in that room with the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all. You heard them.

My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end. If not always in the ways we expect”.
-luna lovegood( harry potter and the order of the phenoix).

That’s no reason for them to take your things,” he said flatly. “d’you want help finding them?”
“oh no,” she said, smiling at him. “they’ll come back, they always do in the end.

I’ve never stunned anyone except in our d.a. Lessons,” said luna, sounding mildly interested. “that was noisier than I thought it would be.

Come, daddy, harry doesn’t want to talk to us right now. He’s just too polite to say it. ~luna lovegood.

You’re just as sane as I am.

Harry: “have you…” he began. “i mean, who … has anyone you known ever died?”
“yes,” said luna simply, “my mother. She was a quite extraordinary witch, you know, but she did like to experiment and one of her spells went rather badly wrong one day. I was nine.”
“i’m sorry,” harry mumbled.
“yes, it was rather horrible,” said luna conversationally. “i still feel very sad about it sometimes. But i’ve still got dad. And anyway, it’s not as though i’ll never see mum again, is it?”
“er – isn’t it?” said harry uncertainly.
she shook her head in disbelief. “oh, come on. You heard them, just behind the veil, didn’t you?”
” you mean…”
“in that room in the archway. They were just lurking out of sight, that’s all, you heard them.

I don’t think you should be an auror, harry,” said luna unexpectedly. Everybody looked at her. “the aurors are part of the rotfang conspiracy, I thought everyone knew that. They’re working to bring down the ministry of magic from within using a mixture of dark magic and gum disease.

A wrackspurt . . . They’re invisible. They float in through your ears and make your brain go fuzzy,” she said. “i thought I felt one zooming around in here.

Stay strong through your pain
grow flowers from it
you have helped me
grow flowers out of mine so
bloom beautifully
dangerously
loudly
bloom softly
however you need
just bloom.

In a world of smoke and ashes, you are milk and honey

When we are going to enter the water … in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, his pomp, and his angels. After this we are immersed three times, making a somewhat larger pledge than the Lord appointed in the Gospel. Then we are taken up [a reference to the Roman tradition of recognizing a newborn baby as a member of the family]. We first taste a mixture of milk and honey and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week.

You tell me to quiet down cause my opinions make me less beautiful but I was not made with a fire in my belly so I could be put out I was not made with a lightness on my tongue so I could be easy to swallow I was made heavy half blade and half silk difficult to forget and not easy for the mind to follow.

If you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise.

May this marriage be blessed.May this marriage be as sweet as milk and honey.May this marriage be as intoxicating as old wine.May this marriage be fruitful like a date tree.May this marriage be full of laughter and everyday a paradise.May this marriage be a seal of compassion for here and hereafter.May this marriage be as welcome as the full moon in the night sky.Listen lovers, now you go on, as I become silent and kiss this blessed night.

Our backs tell stories
no books have the spine to carry.

You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you risked disapproval? Have you ever risked economic security? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous about risking one’s life. So you lose it, you go to your hero’s heaven and everything is milk and honey ’til the end of time. Right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That’s not courage. Real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one’s clichés.

I am water

soft enough
to offer life
tough enough
to drown it away.

Fall
in love
with your solitude.

My heart woke me crying last night
how can I help I begged
my heart said
write the book.

I do not want to have you
to fill the empty parts of me
i want to be full on my own

i want to fill so complete
i could light a whole city
and then
i want to have you
cause the two of
us combined
could set
it on fire.

Lotus-land as it appears in ‘Free Will’ is simply a metaphor for an idealized background, a ‘land of milk and honey.’ It is sometimes also used as a pejorative name for Los Angeles, though that was not in my mind when I wrote it.

Under various names, I have praised only you, rivers!
You are milk and honey and love and death and dance.
From a spring in hidden grottoes, seeping from mossy rocks,
Where a goddess pours live water from a pitcher,
At clear streams in the meadow, where rills murmur underground,
Your race and my race begin, and amazement, and quick passage.

I am hopelessly
a lover and
a dreamer and
that will be the
death of me.

blackmail. The age-old path to the land of milk and honey. The one sure way of being paid for doing nothing.

If the world were a paradise of luxury and ease, a land flowing with milk and honey, where every Jack obtained his Jill at once and without any difficulty, men would either die of boredom or hang themselves; or there would be wars, massacres, and murders; so that in the end mankind would inflict more suffering on itself than it has now to accept at the hands of Nature.

When I was living in Los Angeles, I always booked a moisturizing milk-and-honey massage the day before flying to Spain. It was heaven – I never got dry plane skin or felt stiff from sitting in one position.

There is no food more satiating than milk and honey; and just as such foods produce disgust for the palate, so perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch.

The kindest words my father said to me
women like you drown oceans.

I wish to see the sons and daughters of the world in Peace and busily employed in the more agreeable amusement of fulfilling the first and great commandment, Increase and Multiply : as an encouragement to which we have opened the fertile plains of the Ohio to the poor, the needy and the oppressed of the Earth; any one therefore who is heavy laden, or who wants land to cultivate, may repair thither and abound, as in the Land of promise, with milk and honey: the ways are preparing, and the roads will be made easy, thro’ the channels of Potomac and James river.

Your art
is not about how many people
like your work
your art
is about
if your heart likes your work
if your soul likes your work
it’s about how honest
you are with yourself
and you
must never
trade honesty
for relatability.

When you are broken
and he has left you
do not question
whether you were
enough
the problem was
you were so enough
he was not able to carry it.

The land of milk and honey, they say it is the land of money.

Any land will flow with milk and honey if it is worked with honest hands!

The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men, with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial utopian dream.

You cannot leave
and have me too
i cannot exist in
two places at once

-when you ask if we can still be friends.

Instead of passing blithely over into that Promised Land, flowing almost literally with milk and honey, it may be our destiny to wander a full 40 years or more in the wilderness of doubt and divided sentiments.

Every time you
tell your daughter
you yell at her
out of love
you teach her to confuse
anger with kindness
which seems like a good idea
till she grows up to
trust men who hurt her
cause they look so much
like you.

I want to apologize to all the women I have called beautiful
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave
i am sorry I made it sound as though
something as simple as what you’re born with
is all you have to be proud of
when you have broken mountains with your wit
from now on I will say things like
you are resilient, or you are extraordinary
not because I don’t think you’re beautiful
but because I need you to know
you are more than that.

Perfumed and gallant words make our ears belch.

Faith is like porridge. Better with milk and honey.

I didn’t leave because
i stopped loving you,
i left because the longer
i stayed the less I loved myself.

I said, ‘Oh, I know. If the white folks is in Heaven too, then the black angels were in the kitchen, preparing the milk and honey.’

Even when I went to America I didn’t work for four years. It wasn’t like I came to New York and it was the land of milk and honey. It was just as much of a hard graft. But there’s a lot more opportunity nowadays across the board for actors, no matter what color you are, with the Internet and small productions.

You look at me and cry
everything hurts

i hold you and whisper
but everything can heal.

What I miss most is how you loved me. But what I didn’t know was how you loved me had so much to do with the person I was. It was a reflection of everything I gave you. Coming back to me. How did I not see that. How. Did I sit here soaking in the idea that no one else would love me that way. When it was I that taught you. When it was I that showed you how to fill. The way I needed to be filled. How cruel I was to myself. Giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. Thinking it was you who gave me strength. Wit. Beauty. Simply because you recognized it. As if I was already not these things before I met you. As if I did not remain all these things after you left.

Loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself.

He placed his hands
on my mind
before reaching
for my waist
my hips
or my lips
he didn’t call me
beautiful first
he called me
exquisite

– how he touches me.

Do not look for healing
at the feet of those
who broke you.

Apparently it is ungraceful of me
to mention my period in public
cause the actual biology
of my body is too real

it is okay to sell what’s
between a woman’s legs
more than it is okay to
mention its inner workings

the recreational use of
this body is seen as
beautiful while
its nature is
seen as ugly.

O happy, golden age!
Not for that rivers ran
With streams of milk, and honey dropped from trees

I don’t know what living a balanced life feels like
when I am sad
i don’t cry I pour
when I am happy
i don’t smile I glow
when I am angry
i don’t yell I burn
the good thing about
feeling in extremes
is when I love
i give them wings
but perhaps
that isn’t
such a good thing
cause they always
tend to leave and
you should see me
when my heart is broken
i don’t grieve.

You might not have been my first love
but you were the love that made
all other loves seem
irrelevant.

In the valley of the giants where the stars and stripes explode, the peaches they were sweet and the milk and honey flowed.

Most importantly love
like it’s the only thing you know how
at the end of the day all this
means nothing
this page
where you’re sitting
your degree
your job
the money
nothing even matters
except love and human connection
who you loved
and how deeply you loved them
how you touched the people around you
and how much you gave them.

Jerusalem the Golden,
With milk and honey blest,
eneath thy contemplation
Sink heart and voice oppressed.

The very thought of you
has my legs spread apart
like an easel with a canvas
begging for art.

How is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked milk and honey dripped from my lips as I answered cause people have not been kind to me.

For you to see beauty here
does not mean
there is beauty in me
it means there is beauty rooted
so deep within you
you can’t help but
see it everywhere.

The vision of milk and honey, it comes and goes. But the odor of cooking goes on forever.

I am a museum full of art
but you had your eyes shut.

What terrifies me most is how we
foam at the mouth with envy
when others succeed
but sigh in relief
when they are failing

our struggle to
celebrate each other is
what’s proven most difficult
in being human.

Love will come
and when love comes
love will hold you
love will call your name
and you will melt
sometimes though
love will hurt you but
love will never mean to
love will play no games
cause love knows life
has been hard enough already.

How you love yourself is
how you teach others
to love you.

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.

The world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it
– there is nothing purer than that.

The thing about writing is I can’t tell if it’s healing or destroying.

If others hurl their darts against you, offer them milk and honey in return; if they poison your lives, sweeten their souls.

What is stronger than the human heart which shatters over and over and still lives.

People go but how they left always stays.

I have what I have and I am happy i’ve lost what i’ve lost and I am still happy – outlook.

The Fault in Our Stars is a now world beloved book by John Green of two terminally ill people trying to stretch infinity into the finite. Green's tale of Hazel and Augustus, which was inspired by Green's time working in a hospital, finding loving embrace in the face of death and pain is guarantee to bring both tears and determination to any reader with a heart. All of the quotes presented here lay bare the heartbreaking and inspiring moments that give focus on what a life well lived means.

As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.

Oh, I wouldn’t mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.

The marks humans leave are too often scars.

I’m so excited I can barely breath!

I’m on a roller coaster that only goes up, my friend.

I believe the universe wants to be noticed. I think the universe is inprobably biased toward the consciousness, that it rewards intelligence in part because the universe enjoys its elegance being observed. And who am I, living in the middle of history, to tell the universe that it-or my observation of it-is temporary?

Hello. My name is Hazel Grace Lancaster. And Augustus Waters was the star-crossed love of my life. Ours is an epic love story and I probably won’t be able to get more than a sentence out without disappearing into a puddle of tears. Like all real love stories, ours will die with us, as it should. You know, I’d kind of hoped that he’d be the one eulogizing me, because there is really no one else… Yeah, no, um… I’m not gonna talk about our love story, ’cause I can’t. So instead I’m gonna talk about math. I’m not a mathematician, but I do know this: There are infinite numbers between zero and one. There’s point one, point one two, point one one two, and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger set of infinite numbers between zero and two or between zero and a million.

The only thing worse than biting it from cancer is having a kid bite it from cancer.

I’m like. Like. I’m like a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?

I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things.

You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!

Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.

Augustus Waters talked so much that he’d interupt you at his own funeral. And he was pretentious: Sweet Jesus Christ, that kid never took a piss without pondering the abundant metaphorical resonances of human waste production. And he was vain: I do not believe I have ever met a more physically attractive person who was more acutely aware of his own physical attractiveness.

I will not tell you our love story, because—like all real love stories—it will die with us, as it should.

Mr. Van Houten. I’m a good person, but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person, but a good writer. I think we’d make a good team. I don’t wanna ask you for any favors, but if you have the time – and from what I saw you had plenty – please fix this for me: It’s a eulogy for Hazel. She asked me to write one, and I’m trying, but I just… I could use a little flair. See, the thing is… we all wanna be remembered. But Hazel’s different. Hazel knows the truth. She didn’t want a million admirers, she just wanted one. And she got it. Maybe she wasn’t loved widely, but she was loved deeply. And isn’t that more than most of us get? When Hazel was sick, I knew I was dying, but I didn’t wanna say so. She was in the ICU when I snuck in for ten minutes and I just sat with her before I got caught. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale, but her hands were still her hands, still warm, and her nails were painted this dark blue black color, and… I just held them. And I willed myself to imagine a world without us and what a worthless world that would be. She’s so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she’s smarter than you, ’cause you know she is. She’s funny without ever being mean. I love her. God, I love her, I’m so lucky to love her, Van Houten.

You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.

Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me, so I knew what Augustus was doing. You clench your teeth. You look up. You tell yourself that if they see you cry, it will hurt them, and you will be nothing but a Sadness in their lives, and you must not become a mere sadness, so you will not cry, and you say all of this to yourself while looking up at the ceiling, and then you swallow even though your throat does not want to close and you look at the person who loves you and smile.

Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.

But I believe in true love, you know? I don’t believe that everybody gets to keep their eyes or not get sick or whatever, but everybody should have true love, and it should last at least as long as your life does.

Even thou you have freaking cancer, you are willing to give money to corporation for a chance to acquire even more cancer? Let me just assure you that not being able to breathe? SUCKS. Totally disappointing. Totally.

Some people don’t understand the promises they’re making when they make them.

Guys, I think we should wait until dark.

Only now that I loved a grenade did I understand the foolishness of trying to save others from my own impending fragmentation: I couldn’t unlove Augustus Waters. And I didn’t want to.

I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I am in love with you.”

Maybe okay will be our always.

I want to see you again tonight. But I’m willing to wait all night and much of tomorrow.

You say you’re not special because the world doesn’t know about you, but that’s an insult to me. I know about you.

But I will say this: When the scientists of the future show up at my house with robot eyes and they tell me to try them on, I will tell the scientists to screw off, because I do not want to see a world without him. I was kind of crying by then.

Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you care so much about your silly questions?

We may not look like much, but between us, are five legs, four eyes and two and a half working pair of lungs. But we also have two dozen eggs. So, I suggest you go back inside.

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world… but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.

There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever. There was time before organisms experienced consciousness, and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human oblivion worries you, I encourage you to ignore it. God knows that’s what everyone else does.

You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories, and we made the funny choice.

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There’s .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I’m likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got.

You are a side effect of an evolutionary process that cares little for individual lives. You are a failed experiment in mutation.

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying.

Ok, lungs, you keep your sh*t together for one week.

Oh my God, I’m flying. Oh my God, we’re flying. We’re-we’re flying! Look down! Nothing has ever looked like this in all of human history!

Books so special and rare and your that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.

It is the nature of stars to cross.

That’s the thing about pain…It demands to be felt.

I love you present tense.

I am mad! I’m mad because I think you’re special. And isn’t that enough? You think that the only way to lead a meaningful life, is for everyone to remember you. For everyone to love you! Guess what, Gus – this is your life! This is all you get! You get me, and you get your family and you get this world, and that’s it! And if that’s not enough for you, then I’m sorry, but its not nothing. Because I love you. And I’m going to remember you.

Dude, I’m not deaf, I’m just blind, so I can hear when you make fun of my disability.

Hello, ma’am. Your daughter, she’s done a great injustice, so we’ve come here seeking revenge. You see, we may not look like much, but between the three of us we have five legs, four eyes and two and a half pairs of working lungs, but we also have two dozen eggs, so if I were you, I would go back inside.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

“Augustus Waters,” I said, looking up at him, thinking that you cannot kiss anyone in the Anne Frank House, and then thinking that Anne Frank, after all, kissed someone in the Anne Frank House, and that she would probably like nothing more than for her home to have become a place where the young and irreparably broken sink into love.

The important thing is not what nonsense the voices are saying… but what the voices are feeling.

Because you are beautiful. I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.

The world is not a wish-granting factory.

What a slut time is. She screws everybody.

Our fearlessness shall be our secret weapon.

Funerals, I’ve decided, are not for the dead. They are for the living.

Augustus Waters was a self-aggrandizing b*st*rd. But we forgive him. We forgive him not because he had a heart as figuratively good as his literal one sucked, or because he knew more about how to hold a cigarette than any nonsmoker in history, or because he got eighteen years when he should’ve gotten more.

They don’t kill you unless you light them. And I’ve never lit one. It’s a metaphor, see: You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don’t give it the power to do its killing. A metaphor.

Right, of course. But you keep the promise anyway. That’s what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.

I don’t want to see a world without Augustus Waters in it.

That’s part of what I like about the book in some ways. It portrays death truthfully. You die in the middle of your life, in the middle of a sentence.

There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.

That’s why I like you. Do you realize how rare it is to come across a hot girl who creates a adjectival version of the word pedophile? You are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.

But it is the nature of stars to cross, and never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he has Cassius note, ‘The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / But in ourselves.

Look, let me just say it: He was hot. A nonhot boy stares at you relentlessly and it is, at best, awkward and, at worst, a form of assault. But a hot boy . . . well.

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.

It was unbearable… The whole thing. Every second, worse than the last. One of the first things they ask you in the ER is to rate your pain on a scale from one to ten. I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times. And I remember once when I couldn’t catch my breath and it felt like my chest was on fire, the nurse asked me to rate my pain. Though I couldn’t speak, I held up nine fingers. Later, when I started feeling better, the nurse came in and called me a fighter. “You know how I know?” she said. “You called a ten a nine.” But that wasn’t the truth. I didn’t call it a nine because I was brave. The reason I called it a nine was because I was saving my ten. And this was it… This was the great and terrible ten.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constelations.

All your attempts to save yourself from me will fail.

You are so busy being YOU that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.