Words worth keeping

Alone. Yes, that's the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn't hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.

Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.

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.

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.

You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.

So light a fire!" Harry choked. "Yes...of course...but there's no wood!" ... "HAVE YOU GONE MAD!" Ron bellowed. "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT!

I decided it is better to scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters

Will rolled up his sleeves. "We'll probably have to knock down the door--" "Or," said Jem, reaching out and giving the knob a twist, "not." The door swung open onto a rectangle of darkness. "Now, that's simply laziness," said Will.

I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Atticus said to Jem one day, "I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird." That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. "Your father’s right," she said. "Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.