“Flirt later, flee now.”
- The Winter Long, book #8 in the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire

“Half the trouble in life is caused by pretending there isn't any.” - from The House or Mirth by Edith Wharton

“She knew that he loved her above all else, more than anything in the world, but only for his own sake.”
- Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez

"And what had he wanted? He'd never sat down to think about it. But mostly, he wanted yesterday to be different from today."
- Making Money by Terry Pratchett, #discworld

"No excuses. No excuses at all. Once you had a good excuse, you opened the door to bad excuses." - from THUD! by Terry Pratchett, #discworld

"Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person‘s bookcase and their grocery cart, she‘d pretty much know who they were."
- from Still Life by Louise Penny

"I abhorred weakness of any kind but most particularly in my tea." - A Curious Beginning by Deanna Raybourn

"...writers are a savage breed, Mr. Strike. If you want life-long friendship and selfless camaraderie, join the army and learn to kill. If you want a lifetime of temporary alliances with peers who will glory in your every failure, write novels."
- The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling)

"It's that wounded-poet crap, that soul-pain shit, that too-much-of-a-tortured-genius-to-wash bollocks. Brush your teeth, you little bastard. You're not fucking Byron."
- The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (a pseudonym for J. K. Rowling)

"This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me." - Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch

"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." - Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neil deGrasse Tyson

"That‘s the problem with history, we like to think it‘s a book—that we can turn the page and move the fuck on. But history isn‘t the paper it‘s printed on. It‘s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you." - The Sellout by Paul Beatty

"My advice would be simple. Don't let the bastards get you down. Stay true to yourself and your values. Most of all, keep going."
- What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton

"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?" - Terry Pratchett, Going Postal #discworld

"God, I don't love much but I love words." - Stephanie Butland, Lost for Words

"The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it." - Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment #discworld

"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place, but there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around." - E. L. Konigsburg, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (50th anniversary being celebrated this year!)

"One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking." - Night Watch, Terry Pratchett #Discworld

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry." - Terry Pratchett, The Thief of Time #discworld

"'Questions don't have to make sense, Vincent,' said Miss Susan. 'But answers do.'" - Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett #Discworld

"This is Mrs. Tilly ... who likes cats and really nasty murders." - The Truth by Terry Pratchett #Discworld

"A lie can run round the world before the truth has got its boots on."
- The Truth by Terry Pratchett #Discworld

"He'd noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination - but at the end of the day they'd settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato."
― Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant

"All the witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way."

"...but the tenure of friendships has never been governed by the passage of time." - A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles

"Did you ever want to be a writer?”
“No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.

"To history, choices are merely directions. The Trousers of Time opened up and Vimes began to hurtle down one leg of them." - Jingo by Terry Pratchett

"You have no idea what girls go through! ... We hurt. We change. We ache. We grow up lightyears ahead of you cavemen!"

"The books didn't help me find a word for myself ... And so I made my own.
"I am vengeance."

"As I contemplated the skyline this double feeling came to me as one thought, pressing in from either side of the bridge, impossible for me to reconcile: 'It is ludicrous for anyone to live here' and 'I can never leave.'"

"And he dreamed the dream of all those who publish books: which was to have so much gold in your pockets that you would have to employ two people just to hold your trousers up."

"I could teach you... but I'd have to charge." Lumberjanes

"Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was. Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid." - Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett