The Serpent King

If you're going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.

Nothing makes you feel more naked than someone identifying a desire you never knew you possessed.

Writing is something that you can learn only by doing. To become a writer, you need an imagination, which you clearly have. You need to read books, which you clearly do. And you need to write, which you don't yet do, but should.

That wouldn't be a bad way to die...giving off light for millions of years after you're gone.

I've made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery.

She's it. She's my everything. She's the standard by which I'll judge beauty for the rest of my life. I'll measure every touch to her breath on my skin. Every voice to her voice. Every mind to her mind. My measure of perfection. The name carved into me. If I could, I would lie with her under these stars until my heart burst.

So when I watch trains, it makes me think about how much movement there is in the world. How every train has dozens of cars and every car has hundreds of parts, and all those parts and cars work day after day. And then there are all these other motions. People are born and die. Seasons change. Rivers flow to the sea. Earth circles the sun and the moon circles Earth. Everything whirring and spinning toward something. And I get to be part of it for a little while, the way I get to watch a train for a minute or two, and then it's gone.

I want you to be careful in this world. My heart is wrapped up in you.

What you call pride, I call courage.

We live in a series of moments and seasons and sense memories, strung end to end to form a sort of story.

How is it every time we're talking about the real world, you manage to bring up fantasy, and every time we're talking about fantasy, you manage to bring up the real world? Travis shrugged. "My fantasies are more interesting than the real world and machines and tools are more interesting than you guys' fantasies.

You're never safe from yourself. Your own blood will poison you.

I’m tired of watching children perish. I’m tired of watching the world grind up gentle people. I’m tired of outliving those I shouldn’t be outliving. I’ve made books my life because they let me escape this world of cruelty and savagery. I needed to say that out loud to somebody other than my cats. Please take care of yourselves, my young friends.

The worst days spent with her were better than the best days spent without her.

Wanting to believe something is powerful

People live quiet lives and that's okay. There's dignity in that, no matter what you may think.

Some fall in glorious ways. One green fields of battle as old warriors, surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty. Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone, for no good reason at all.

There are books stacked high around them - the way opportunity and possibility are stacked around them.

music was the only beautiful thing he owned

Because we should do things we're afraid of. It makes it easier every time we do it.

She got up , walked around the table, and gave him a lingering hug, running her fingers through the back of his hair. She'd been finding more excuses to hug him lately. "What was that for?" Dill asked. "Because you looked like your heart stepped on a Lego.

Love deserves monuments, and this is the only kind I know how to build.

We are a fallen species, spitting on the gift of salvation. Humanity is irredeemable.

Some fall in glorious ways. On green fields of battle as old warriors, surrounded by friends, fighting for their homes, fighting cruelty. Some fall crawling in the dirt of Forrestville, Tennessee, in the dark, impossibly young and alone, for no good reason at all.

And if you’re going to live, you might as well do painful, brave, and beautiful things.

Knight, proud in victory, proud in death. Let your name evermore be a light to those who loved you. Let white flowers grow upon this place that you rest. Yours was a life well lived, and now you dine in the halls of the Elders at their eternal feast.

You're telling someone in a wheelchair 'Walking is awesome. You should get up and walk.' It's not that easy.

Do you guys not get it? You can’t hurt us anymore. You can’t do anything to us. You can’t take anything from us. You’re nothing now.