I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.

You can call it innocence, or you can call it gullibility, but Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: she assumed that everyone else was just like her.

In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

Time itself made all things rare.

Funny how the nature of a normal day is the first memory to fade.

Not that happiness is dull. Only that it doesn't tell well. And of our consuming diversions as we age is to recite, not only to others but to ourselves, our own story.

...whenever a woman describes a man as sweet, the dalliance is doomed.

Though surely to avoid attachments for fear of loss is to avoid life.

I thought at the time that I couldn't be horrified anymore, or wounded. I suppose that's a common conceit, that you've already been so damaged that damage itself, in its totality, makes you safe.

I was mortified by the prospect of becoming hopelessly trapped in someone else's story.

My mind is huge with little stories that I never told you.

We are the children of gods and angels.

You cannot escape God's call on your life. He will pursue you to the ends of the earth!

There are many statues of men slaying lions, but if only the lions were sculptors there might be quite a different set of statues.

It's not getting any better for the American people. It seems to be getting worse. That's predictable; education is a cycle. Stupidity breeds more stupidity.

There's not a single genre that is hard to find or hard to get.

My guitar wants to kill your mama.

You have to be careful because those feelings and bitterness can take over and consume in a bad way.

Choking is about thinking too much. Panic is about thinking too little. Choking is about loss of instinct. Panic is reversion to instinct. They may look the same, but they are worlds apart.

We have a generation of people who think they can stand before the judgment seat of God despite their sins.

Hard to feel confident when you’re surrounded by horse-sized wolves. Emmett Cullen, Breaking Dawn, Chapter 39, p.745