“This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.”

“If it turned out Brandon Stark also likes to dress up as Strwberry Shortcake while playing croquet with his miniture pony collection, I totally wouldn't be surprised anymore.”

Meg Cabot (1967) Novelist

“Some people like to go out dancing
Other people they have to work
There's even some evil mothers
They'll tell you that everything is just dirt
That women never really faint
Or that villians always blink their eyes
Or that children are the only ones who blush
And that life is just to die

But anyone who ever had a heart
They wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who ever played a part
They wouldn't turn around and hate it”

Lou Reed (1942–2013) American musician

“feels like some kind of ride but it's turning out just
to be life going absolutely perfectly”

Brian Andreas (1956) American artist

“I had never feared insomnia before--like prison, wouldn't it just give you more time to read?”

Lorrie Moore (1957) American writer

“Turns out it was another load of monkeys from another part of the island…from the rough bit…”

Karl Pilkington (1972) English television personality, social commentator, actor, author and former radio producer

“He found himself wanting to write poetry about how her blue eyes were like starlight and her hair like night, because "night" and "starlight" rhymed, but he had a feeling the poem wouldn't turn out that well…”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

“…The resistance to English, the fear of English, has made us bad readers of English literature, because of our fear of contaminating the Spanish language, of losing it in the avalanche of North American influence…”

Luis Rafael Sánchez (1936) Puerto Rican playwright and novelist

“We read literature for a lot of reasons, but two of the most compelling ones are to get out of ourselves and our own life stories and—equally important—to find ourselves by understanding our own life stories more clearly in the context of others’.”

Maureen Corrigan (1955) American journalist and writer

“The purpose of literature is to turn blood into ink.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author