"Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be."

"No one here gets out alive."

"Earth's crammed with heaven...But only he who sees, takes off his shoes."

"When it's over, I want to say: all my lifeI was a bride married to amazement.I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonderif I have made of my life something particular, and real.I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world."

"You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you."

"Life, unfortunately, doesn't seem to care what we want."

"Some things you hear with your ears. Others, you hear with your heart."

"I seem to have run in a great circle, and met myself again on the starting line."

"If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for, in detail, ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully for the thing I want to live for."

"Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, alistening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, allof which have the potential to turn a life around."

"One of the most spiritual things you can do is embrace your humanity. Connect with those around you today. Say, "I love you", "I'm sorry", "I appreciate you", "I'm proud of you"...whatever you're feeling. Send random texts, write a cute note, embrace your truth and share it...cause a smile today for someone else...and give plenty of hugs."

"How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but—mainly—to ourselves."

"MagicSandra’s seen a leprechaun,Eddie touched a troll,Laurie danced with witches once,Charlie found some goblins gold.Donald heard a mermaid sing,Susy spied an elf,But all the magic I have knownI've had to make myself."

"The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more."

"I'm the girl nobody knows until she commits suicide. Then suddenly everyone had a class with her."

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others."

"When you hold a grudge, you want someone else’s sorrow to reflect your level of hurt but the two rarely meet."

"Don’t bother trying to explain your emotions. Live everything as intensely as you can and keep whatever you felt as a gift from God. The best way to destroy the bridge between the visible and invisible is by trying to explain your emotions."

"Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room."

"When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man."

"Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good."

"There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for."