c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
I'll just say right here that whoever thought up the idea of paying dead white authors by the word should have a special place in hell with the rest of the sadists.
— Heather W. Petty, Lock & Mori
Author visits are a fun way to engage kids, and encourage reading!
— Carmela Dutra
If you like a book you read, tell someone. If you hate it, tell em harder.
— J.D. Mader
Writing to please all readers is like cooking without seasoning …
— Nanette L. Avery
Forget the fictional characters – how many authors are being stopped on the street?
— Joshua Cohen, Book of Numbers
I do not think that there can ever be enough books about anything
—  and I say that knowing that some of them are going to be about Pilates.
A hint: perhaps in this case, you should refrain from throwing the book at the audience when you finish.
— Annie Barrows
The public has an exalted view of authors, and rightly so. Great writers impact deeply on our imagination. And yet, behind the kudos, there sometimes lurks a person at odds with the nobility of the author photo or the 'sheer humanity' of the prose style.
— Conrad  Williams, Unfinished Business
Imagination must be allowed to run free in our subconscious mind and when ready, it reveals its ideals to us in our conscious state.
— Lee Bice-Matheson, Destiny's Gate
Payment and reserved copyright are at bottom the ruin of literature. Only he who writes entirely for the sake of what he has to say writes anything worth writing. It is as if there were a curse on money: every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain.
— Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World
If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.
— Mary Gaitskill
Most people don't read books, but when they do, mine are the first, and that's enough for me.
— Daniel Marques
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
— Samuel Johnson
Authors have to help each other out. It isn't a competition
—  we're all holding hands to cross the street here.
[The writer] can easily foresee his fate ... in an age when an author who wants to have readers must take care to write in such a way that the book can easily be perused during an afternoon nap ....
— Søren Kierkegaard
I am not that creative. And therefore you must be real.
— Rick Moody, Hotels of North America
That's a good point," Professor Hirota said. "But there is one thing we ought to keep in mind in the study of man. Namely, that a human being placed in particular circumstances has the ability and the right to do just the opposite of what the circumstances dictate. The trouble is, we have this odd habit of thinking that men and light both act according to mechanical laws, which leads to some stunning errors. We set things up to make a man angry, and he laughs. We try to make him laugh, and again he does the opposite, he gets angry. Either way, though, he's still a human being."Hirota had enlarged the scope of the problem again."Well, then, what you're saying is, no matter what a human being does in a particular set of circumstances, he is being natural," said the novelist at the far end of the table."That's it," Hirota shot back. "It seems to me that you might create any sort of character in a novel and there would be at least one person in the world just like him. We humans are simply incapable of imagining non-human actions or behavior. It's the writer's fault if we don't believe in his characters as human beings.
— Sōseki Natsume
The biggest threat to authors in this age is not plagiarism or poverty, it's obscurity
— Bernard Kelvin Clive
Bernard of Clairvaux shared with Goethe and Balzac the art of charging narratives with his own charisma (and this is probably the only context in which those three names can be mentioned in one breath). On the surface self-representation was not the purpose of such narratives; they presented themselves as fiction or as commentaries on scripture. Let me suggest the word 'autography' to describe the process. 'Autography' is writing yourself into your own composition, not by describing yourself, but by infusing your own presence into it. The reader feels your presence, but sees someone or something else.
— C. Stephen Jaeger
And you out there: Aren’t you somehow right here with me?
— Garth Risk Hallberg, City on Fire
Going by Dr. Marriott's description, Zoe imagined it to be small and elegant as she peered into dozens of shelves, rummaging through the contents. There were globes and charts and atlases, pocket watches and hand-painted Indian silk, gold-plated cutlery, litter coffers of spice, inlaid combs, silver fasteners, trinket boxes, blown-glass figurines, turn-of-the-century postcards with foreign stamps, and portraits of Victorian authors in elaborate frames. But nowhere did she discover a stone of any kind, with or without runes.
— Christine Brodien-Jones, The Glass Puzzle
It's a sad day when your iPhone becomes a horcrux, witches hunt your soul and you have to seek the resurrection stone just to find yourself. I was hardly Harry Potter. There was no lightening bolt on my forehead, but if you knew my life you would have met a storm.
— Shannon L. Alder
Authors can alter your life.
— Bernard Kelvin Clive
Well, let me try again,' he said. 'If it be true, and no doubt it is, that the proper study of mankind is man, it is also true that man is best studied in the books that he has written about himself; and all books, whatever their subject matter, are in essence autobiographical... Wherefore, it is clear - or is it? - that writers of books are what I have called them, the most fascinating people in the world.
— Peter Ruber, The Last Bookman
If you wait for God to descend to earth and save youfrom your fuck ups, you will be waiting until youdrop dead.
— Sheeja Jose, Goodbye Girl
Publishing would be so wonderful without those wretched authors.
— Jonathan Galassi, Muse
You learn to run by running.
— Sheeja Jose
Life is like a dream, when you wake up,you only have memories.
— Sheeja Jose
The burning point of paper was the moment where I knew that I would have to remember this. Because people would have to remember books, if other people burn them or forget them. We will commit them to memory. We will be come them. We become authors. We become their books.
— Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
One of the most difficult things when you were trying to navigate the world of books was dealing with all the unreliable authors. They were so unbelievably tricky to keep track of. An author might write a brilliant book, only to follow it up with something utterly mediocre. Or, and this was almost worse, one might have written a brilliant book but then turn out to be dead. Then there were those authors who started a series but never finished it.
— Katarina Bivald, The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend
People hate the idea of politicians, you see, but love the idea of authors, at least until they meet one.
— Matthew Pearl, The Last Bookaneer
Books are the most important of all my possessions. They capture the thoughts, feelings, dreams and lives of their authors, welcoming us into their worlds and inspiring us to emulate their adventures.
— Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1
People always try to make self-published authors feel insignificant. I have more respect for self-published authors, because I know the adversity they faced. They didn't just write a manuscript, query letter, and blam book deal. These authors had to do it the difficult way. There is no publisher, or agents, investing time, and money into making their book. Just the indie author's manuscript, own currency, and persistence.
— Mary Sage Nguyen
I like to read books one after another. Immerse myself in a book, and then immerse myself in the next book, and just keep going until there aren't any more books left to swim in. That's why I hate when authors die. I cannot stand it. There will be no more books forthcoming from that person. Their future books died with them. In the past I have found a series of books and loved it so much that all I wanted to do was read and read and read those books for the rest of my life. Then I would find out that the author was dead. Had in fact been dead for many a year. This has happened to me several times.
— Alison McGhee
As an author the question I get asked the most is, “why do you write?” My knee jerk response is, “Because I love it,” which is true, but not the whole truth. So here is my revised response to that question; “I write for the thirteen year old me who hated reading and craved something different than the boring literature I was forced to read for school. I write to see something I want to read exist in the world. I write because it becomes unbearable to hold so many stories in my head without a way to express them, but most importantly, I write to be true to myself.
— Day Parker
Do you look like the photograph on your book jackets? Authors, I find, seldom do.
— Hilary Mantel, The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher
It is not lack of ability, but lack of motivation, lack of focus, and lack of self-confidence that prevents most aspiring authors from finishing what they started.
— Gudjon Bergmann, The Author's Blueprint
I am an Author a person who plays with words so they can dance in the minds of others
— Stanley Victor Paskavci
Sandra L. West and Aberjhani have compiled an encyclopedia that makes an important contribution to our need to know more about one of modern America’s truly significant artistic and cultural movements. It helps us to acknowledge the complexity of African American life at a time when the nation’s culture was taking on a recognizable shape, when race was becoming less of a crushing burden and more of a challenge to progressive people and their ideals, and when cities and their inhabitants symbolized the end of the past and the seductiveness of the new.
— Clement Alexander Price, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
I will continue to write what I love to read, and the fact that it doesn't sell as well as romance or sci-fi or fantasy isn't the point.
— Joanna Penn
I never reread what I've written. I'm far too afraid to feel ashamed of what I've done.
— Jorge Luis Borges
Professional writers don't have muses
—  they have mortgages.
Failing to writer everyday doesn't mean that you've given up, though a chapter a day - keeps writers block away!
— David Batterson
There is only two kind of #books .First one is by some #famous person and Second one makes a person #famous .
— Tushar Upreti
Seriously, when you see a new book fresh on the stand and in big letters it says “A Million Copies Sold,” did you ever wonder who bought them?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
For every minute that a book entertains you, the author of that book invested several minutes of their lives. Please show your appreciation by taking a minute out of your life to leave us a review. It not only means a lot to us to know you enjoyed our work, it inspires us to write more! Thank you!
— David SterlingA. Sterling
I’m contemplating if book sales and promotions can actually be rigged like so many other things in our everyday lives?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich, Stantasyland: Quips Quotes and Quandaries
I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.
— Evelyn Waugh
To say that Agatha Christie’s characters are cardboard cut-outs is an insult to cardboard cut-outs.
— Ruth Rendell
I am reading Henry James… and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber.
— Virginia Woolf
Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste than Herman Melville.
— D.H. Lawrence
Discovered Pages has released its first monthly magazine and it is being raved about!! We have author spotlights, great info for authors and readers, publishing info etc etc. Get your copy today on kindle for $1.99!!!!
— discovered pages
Love and respect are above any law
— Uri Jerzy Nachimson, The Polish Patriot
I believe that everyone has a story to tell. The problem that is inherent to most aspiring authors is that they struggle with getting the story from their head to the page.
— Steve C. Roberts
In the timeless and universal manner of authors conversing in public places, he did not fail to mention its title, “Volume III of Principia Mathematica entitled, The System of the World, available shortly, where books are sold.
— Neal Stephenson
... in art nothing is more secondary than the author's intentions.
— Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions
Am reading more of Oscar Wilde. What a tiresome, affected sod.
— Noël Coward
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
— Robert Frost
Writing novels is not an illness that need be recovered from. It is my work
—  it is what I do.
There is something silly about a man who wears a white suit all the time, especially in New York." (on Tom Wolfe)
— Norman Mailer
An idiot child screaming in a hospital." (on George Bernard Shaw)
— H.G. Wells
All raw, uncooked, protesting."(on Aldous Huxley)
— Virginia Woolf
In Australia the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle. I just didn’t expect to end up with the chicken.
— Richard Flanagan
The only thing in life that's really interesting is the contest. We are all contestants--whether we admit it or not. If I read 20 pages of a book and they're no good, I put it down. Maybe it's good after 100 pages, but I can't wait. The author lost.
— Lee Marvin
I am too much of an imitator to be a true writer.
— Zia Haider Rahman
Avoid the RTP Syndrome. When you rush to Publish, you rush to mistakes and chaos. Guaranteed.
— Judith Briles, Snappy Sassy Salty: Wise Words for Authors and Writers
There's writing power in one word sentences and one sentence paragraphs. Wise authors use them. -Judith Briles
— Judith Briles, Snappy Sassy Salty: Wise Words for Authors and Writers
It is, of course, not only impossible for readers to know the intention of most, if not all, writers, but an author himself may think he is writing one thing while he is in fact writing something quite different.
— Russell M. Goldfarb, Sexual Repression And Victorian Literature
You're asking the cyborg fugitive and the wild animal to be the welcoming committee? That's adorable.
— Marissa Meyer, Cress
Crazy people love their Kindles.
— Dermot Davis, Brain: The Man Who Wrote the Book That Changed the World
The big trinity of publishing: mystery, thrillers and romance. If you can combine all three, then it’s a winner’s trifecta and you’ll be rich beyond your dreams.
— Dermot Davis, Brain: The Man Who Wrote the Book That Changed the World
And you will not hurt him anymore. Not one of you. Because I am his protector. His rear guard. I am his" -Tara Reese
— Lucian Bane, Dom Wars: Round Four
In order to be heard, an author must have readers...
— Rachel Heffington
I don’t think writers compete, I think they’re all doing separate things in their own style.
— Elmore Leonard
These days. Most of us have the attention span of a meth-addicted squirrel.
— Kristen Lamb, Rise of the Machines--Human Authors in a Digital World
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn
—  it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.
What do you want to write? What gets your goat? What irks you to no length? If you could change the world with words, what would they be?
— Lori Lesko
An authors publication date never matters, a book not read yet will always be New"...
— Catherine Townsend-Lyon
Authors write books for one, and only one, reason: because we like to torture people.
— Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians
The novelist is condemned to wander all his life. Homeless and blind like Oedipus he wanders until death. And so let us protect the novelist and adore him, with pity, honor, and love.
— Roman Payne
If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place... Most, probably all, human beings get to do awful things and believe things that other human beings think they should be burned for believing, and they get to do and believe wonderful things too, and artists, writers, musicians, creators, actors, are nothing if not human beings.
— Neil Gaiman
I like to read as much as I can from every genre. That way, I can express my love for all writers.
— Jen Selinsky
An author never lies. We do, however tend to speak in a fictional prose.
— Carl Henegan, Darkness Left Undone
Hard core authors are determined about their craft, and they know that building a brand entails hard work. They eat, breathe and live their writing.:
— Geraldine Solon
This is the best time to be an author.
— Geraldine Solon, Authorpreneur in Pajamas
Be the CEO of your own career.
— Julie Hedlund
An Authorpreneur focuses on establishing one's brand to the consumer using different avenues to promote their work.
— Geraldine Solon, Authorpreneur in Pajamas
Readers are often fans of Authors, but I, myself, am a fan of readers. They are the ones who breathe life into the pages that we give birth to, after all.
— Janae Mitchell
You had to admire a guy who called his own new book a classic before it was published and anyone else had a chance to read it.
— William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Author? Author? Did you write these legs?''Yes."'Well, I don't like dem. I don't like 'em at all at all. I could ha' writted better legs meself.
— Spike Milligan, Puckoon
An idea is a gift, a finished project is turning that gift into a book by making yourself write even when you don't want to. There is no such thing as a block of time to write. You have to carve time from a busy day. Elaine L. Orr
— Elaine Orr
Any conversation including the mention of Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury, or Emily Dickinson is one worth getting into or at least eavesdropping.
— Don Roff
Most gothics are overplotted novels whose success or failure hinges on the author's ability to make you believe in the characters and partake of the mood.
— Stephen King, Danse Macabre
Let your passion bleed through your work. No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.
— Ace Antonio Hall
There is in Albert Camus’ literary craftsmanship a seductive intelligence that could almost make a reader dismiss his philosophical intentions if he had not insisted on making them so clear.
— Aberjhani, Illuminated Corners: Collected Essays and Articles Volume I.
I read your diary. I KNOW
— Mary Papas, 14 Twisted Tales To Enthrall
You are in love with my husband. You need some acting lessons to learn to hide it better.
— Mary Papas, 14 Twisted Tales To Enthrall
A bestseller is a book written by a rich person of Indian roots staying in Europe for more than a decade..
— Himmilicious
Writer's block is when your imaginary friends won't talk to you.
— Mary Papas
If my public existence does anything worthwhile, hopefully it at least demystifies the author a bit, because I know when I was younger I felt like authors were like wizards or something. Turns out they're total muggles.
— John Green
Writers aren't exactly people, they're a bunch of people trying to be one person.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald
Book marketing is like opening doors for your readers to find you, not a stick you hit them with.
— Heather Hart
If you fall in love with a character, then you are actually falling in love with the author that wrote the character. Therefore, you could conclude that if you are said author, you are in love with yourself.
— Heather Dowell
That woman must have been a husky in a previous life.
— Mary Papas, 14 Twisted Tales To Enthrall
Not all marketing people are writers, but all writers must learn to be marketers.
— Joanne Kraft
Of all the advantages that ghostwriting offers, one of the greatest must be the opportunity that you get to meet people of interest.
— Andrew   Crofts, Secrets of the Italian Gardener
There's a darkness to everyone, you just have to let it out to see the world in new eyes.
— Jesse Abundis
All that sweetness makes me feel weird. My sister was never the loving type.
— Mary Papas, 14 Twisted Tales To Enthrall
- If you could describe my son in 3 words, what would you say? - Sweet. Cute. Funny. - That could be a description of a puppy she says dryly.
— Mary Papas, 14 Twisted Tales To Enthrall
A shrink and a patient in a love-hate relationship. Who is REALLY the boss?
— Mary Papas, Take Off Your Mask
...he was after all, a novelist...and a novelist was simply a fellow who got paid to tell lies. The bigger the lies, the better the pay.
— Stephen King, The Dark Half
An author simply comes up with a hypothetical question, and then spends eight months and 80 thousands words to come up with a believable lie to answer it
— Carl Henegan
There should be more to writing than entertaining an already-brain-dead society and making money. If not,then you miss the point of writing.
— Carol Morgan
I'm not stupid and I'm not brainy. I just lack execution sometimes. I'm more of a "I should have said that" kind of gal. But there will be other days when I'll have a comback that'll knock ya flat and you knows it brov! ha-ha!
— Ellie Williams
Finding your passion is the key to your success. - Tracy Kauffman
— Tracy Kauffman
An increasing number of people are taking advantage of having a leg up on their competition by branding themselves as "the expert" in their particular niche. Call it a business card, a resume, a billboard, or whatever you choose, but the long and short of it is that books are no longer just books. They are branding devices and credibility builders, not to mention door openers. Books are the reason that authors command large speaking and consulting fees.
— Kytka Hilmar-Jezek, Book Power: A Platform for Writing, Branding, Positioning & Publishing
Writing your book is not the end all of your strategy. It is a powerful catalyst that will push you to the top of your game. You see, something magical happens when you write your book and this is the best place to mention it because a sale happens when your book is complete. You sell yourself on the idea that you are more than you previously believed yourself to be. You get to experience that “I did it” moment where your mind releases these wonderful stimulators that make you feel awesome. You see yourself in a different way and this opens up a greater opportunity for accomplishment, achievement, and success.
— Kytka Hilmar-Jezek, Book Power: A Platform for Writing, Branding, Positioning & Publishing
Authors are merely the medium between the words and the page.
— Caron Kamps Widden, Restoration
Art is a conversation we are all invited to and are all worthy to participate in. Yes, great works can be intimidating, but no one else in the world has what you have—your voice, your eyes, your feeling and perspective. Other people have written great books, but no one else will ever write YOUR book. It's worth writing. That is the belief that carries me through.
— Rachel Hartman
I'm often asked which author I am most inspired by, but I'm inspired by all authors. It takes a great deal of courage to pour your onto paper and watch silently as the world judges it loudly.
— Charity Parkerson
An old book was a time capsule. When you opened the front cover, you opened a door to another world—a world accessible through a kind of looking glass made of hard-board and cloth. The author’s voice resonated in the reader’s head with the same words that had resonated in his own as he wrote them. He spoke to the reader from the past. What he had witnessed, experienced, learned, and discovered would live forever. You only had to turn a page to travel in time.
— Stephen Parrish
I never read prefaces, and it is not much good writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have never thought of this.
— E. Nesbit, The Story of the Treasure Seekers
You can never kill the spirit of an artist. They will always rewrite their resurrection and paint an eternal sunset with a blaze of orange that no one has seen before.
— Shannon L. Alder
I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that’s made by one person, but that’s not true… Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.
— John Green
Publishing a book is like being pregnant. By the end, you're just ready to get that baby out!
— Carmen DeSousa
Where do storytellers find the wisdom to discover their own stories? From no place more mysterious than their own hearts.
— Marion Dane Bauer, What's Your Story?: A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction
i want to never settle for anything less than my soul on paper.
— Jonathan Culver
i want to bleed ink and shit prose.
— Jonathan Culver
We live, all of us, in sprung rhythm. Even in cities, folk stir without knowing it to the surge in the blood that is the surge and urgency of season. In being born, we have taken seisin of the natural world, and as ever, it is the land which owns us, not we, the land. Even in the countryside, we dwell suspended between the rhythms of earth and season, weather and sky, and those imposed by metropolitan clocks, at home and abroad.When does the year begin? No; ask rather, When does it not? For us – all of us – as much as for Mr Eliot, midwinter spring is its own season; for all of us, if we but see it, our world is as full of time-coulisses as was Thomas Mann’s.Countrymen know this, with the instinct they share with their beasts. Writers want to know it also, and to articulate what the countryman knows and cannot, perhaps, express to those who sense but do not know, immured in sad conurbations, rootless amidst Betjeman’s frightful vision of soot and stone, worker’s flats and communal canteens, where it is the boast of pride that a man doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet.As both countryman and writer, I have a curious relationship to time.
— G.M.W. Wemyss
We need to boost each other to get to the top. It is much more effective than stepping on each other.
— Teresa Mummert
ATTENTION ALL AUTHORS: Be very careful who you give acknowledgement to in your books. Reason: That acknowledgement is in permanent, ink and they are forever associated with you, that book and your name. -Word to the Wi
— Anita R. Sneed-Carter
Show me you care about our common tongue. Bring to your [writing] passion, deeply informed by knowledge of your subject. Stay me, not with apples and flagons, but with wit and grace, humor and intense caring about your discipline. Don't slack, don't give it a lick and a promise, don't make it evident that you posted what was 'good enough for government work,' don't try and fake it. Give it your best, your all, not for pence, but for the love of the craft. Do these things, as these writers and scores I have not named do, bring to your work your self, your heart, your voice, motherly or youthful, lawyerly or priestly, conservative or liberal, it matters not. Do this and I and hundreds of others will return again and again to your work, not merely because we may have a burning need for a new printer or an abiding interest in college newspapers or what have you, but because we wish to spend time with your mind and voice.
— Markham Shaw Pyle
You're not gay, are you?"Simon's greenish color deepened. "If I were, I would dress better.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Bones
Isabelle snorted. 'All the boys are gay. In this truck, anyway. Well, not you, Simon.''You noticed' said Simon.'I think of myself as a freewheeling bisexual,' added Magnus.'Please never say those words in front of my parents,' said Alec. 'Especially my father.''I thought your parents were okay with you, you know, coming out,' Simon said, leaning around Isabelle to look at Alec, who was — as he often was — scowling, and pushing his floppy dark hair out of his eyes. Aside from the occasional exchange, Simon had never talked to Alec much. He wasn’t an easy person to get to know. But, Simon admitted to himself, his own recent estrangement from his mother made him more curious about Alec’s answer than he would have been otherwise.'My mother seems to have accepted it,' Alec said. 'But my father — no, not really. Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay.'Simon felt Isabelle tense next to him. 'Turned you gay?' She sounded incredulous. 'Alec, you didn’t tell me that.''I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider,' said Simon.Magnus snorted; Isabelle looked confused. 'I’ve read Magnus’s stash of comics,' said Alec, 'so I actually know what you’re talking about' A small smile played around his mouth. 'So would that give me the proportional gayness of a spider?''Only if it was a really gay spider,' said Magnus, and he yelled as Alec punched him in the arm. 'Ow, okay, never mind.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls
Iz," Alec said tiredly. "It's not like it's one big bad thing. It's a lot of little invisible things. When Magnus and I were traveling, and I'd call from the road, Dad never asked how he was. When I get up to talk in Clave meetings, no one listens, and I don't know if that's because I'm young or if it's because of something else. I saw Mom talking to a friend about her grandchildren and the second I walked into the room they shut up. Irina Cartwright told me it was a pity no one would ever inherit my blue eyes now." He shrugged and looked toward Magnus, who took a hand off the wheel for a moment to place it on Alec's. "It's not like a stab wound you can protect me from. It's a million little paper cuts every day.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls
Gay kids aren’t a “plot point” that you can play with. Gay kids are real, actual kids, teenagers, growing up into awesome adults, and they don’t have the books they need to reflect that. Growing up, my nose was constantly stuck in a book. Growing up as a lesbian, I was told over and over and over by the lack of gayness in said books that I did not exist. That I wasn’t important enough to tell stories about. That I was invisible. Why are we telling our kids this? Why are we telling them that they’re a minority, and they don’t deserve the same rights as straights, that they’re going to grow up in a world that despises them, that the intolerance of humanity will never change, that they’re worthless. It’s not true.
— Sarah Diemer
Being gay is like glitter, it never goes away.
— Lady Gaga
Tell me something good about your life," I whispered, needing to hear that he wasn't as broken as I thought him to be.Peter breathed into the handset for about two minutes. I began wondering if he was about to hang up, or had fallen asleep, when he answered. "You." It was so quiet I almost didn't hear it. And then he hung up before I could ask him to repeat himself.I fell asleep, grinning, with the phone still clutched in my hand and my milk souring on the coffee table.
— Dani Alexander, Shattered Glass
There’s a Greek legend—no, it’s in something Plato wrote—about how true lovers are really two halves of the same person. It says that people wander around searching for their other half, and when they find him or her, they are finally whole and perfect. The thing that gets me is that the story says that originally all people were really pairs of people, joined back to back, and that some of the pairs were man and man, some woman and woman, and others man and woman. What happened was that all of these double people went to war with the gods, and the gods, to punish them, split them all in two. That’s why some lovers are heterosexual and some are homosexual, female and female, or male and male.
— Nancy Garden, Annie on My Mind
The blond boy in the red trunks is holding your head underwater because he is trying to kill you, and you deserve it, you do, and you know this, and you are ready to die in this swimming pool because you wanted to touch his hands and lips and this means your life is over anyway. You’re in eighth grade. You know these things. You know how to ride a dirt bike, and you know how to do long division, and you know that a boy who likes boys is a dead boy, unless he keeps his mouth shut, which is what you didn't do, because you are weak and hollow and it doesn't matter anymore.
— Richard Siken, Crush
You could move.' ---"Dear Abby" responds to a reader who complained that a gay couple was moving in across the street and wanted to know what he could do to improve the quality of the neighborhood.
— Abigail Van Buren
Let's make a law that gay people can have birthdays, but straight people get more cake--you know, to send the right message to kids.
— Bill Maher, New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer
Before you echo 'Amen' in your home or place of worship, think and remember...a child is listening.
— Mary Griffith
Straight? So is spaghetti until you heat it up
— Jet Mykles, Squire
I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you...And you...And you...Gotta give em hope.
— Harvey Milk, The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words
Dan: 'Ah, well, I hope this didn't have anything to do with me.'Ellen: 'No, not unless you played Cat Woman in Batman.
— Ellen DeGeneres
Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.
— Harvey Milk
So, do you clean, too?”“Hell, no!.. I’m gay ... not a damn housewife!”Everybody laughed.(The Tin Star)
— J.L. Langley
Once he asked me what I thought had turned me gay.""I hope you told him you were bitten by a gay spider," said Simon.
— Cassandra Clare, City of Lost Souls
Lots of people hate gay people.You can tell who they are because they start sentences with, "It's not like I hate gay people.
— Ali Liebegott
I've just fallen in love with you. What is your name, and please tell me you're gay?
— Jet Mykles, Just For You
If Harvey had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they are less than by the churches, by the government, by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours.
— Dustin Lance Black
It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.
— Harvey Milk
But your book is wrong, Mrs. Strunk, says George, when it tells you that Jim is the substitute I found for a real son, a real kid brother, a real husband, a real wife. Jim wasn't a substitute for anything. And there is no substitute for Jim, if you'll forgive my saying so, anywhere.
— Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man
Like all men who look this good, Frank has no interest in women.
— Dennis Sharpe, Blood & Spirits
Opening the door, he nearly did a double take into the mirror behind him. Hooch. Hooch, pushing his shades back up onto his head, and re-shouldering the bergan. Hooch, standing in the doorway. “Been thinking.” Two words, more than usual. “Been around a bit.” Six, speech worthy of a national holiday. “Looking for a station now.” Eleven, whole fucking fireworks. "Central station.” Thirteen, and the heavens came down for Matt. “You still offering?” Sixteen, and the world stopped spinning. Matt stood thinking for a while, not a muscle in his face twitched. Then stepped aside, gestured the other man to follow him. Closed the door. “One condition.” Hooch’s brows rose for a split second. Matt broke into a grin at last, which threatened to split his face. “Promise not to talk too much.
— Marquesate, Special Forces
I felt very close to God.... My friends say that's because I was always on my knees.
— Armistead Maupin
I am not here to entertain straight people.
— Sarah Schulman
This is why homophobia is a terrible evil: it disguises itself as concern while it is inherently hate.
— Tyler Oakley, Binge
If he’s not gay and he hung out with you the whole time, he wanted to be. It’s boyfriend or want to be boyfriend or I guess gay. Those are the choices.
— Daniel Handler, Why We Broke Up
Gay men are guardians of the masculine impulse. To have anonymous sex in a dark alleyway is to pay homage to the dream of male freedom. The unknown stranger is a wandering pagan god. The altar, as in pre-history, is anywhere you kneel.
— Camille Paglia
No, I`ve never thought that I was gay. And that`s not something you think. It`s something you know.
— Robert Plant
It doesn't matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.
— Daphne Fielding
Augie: Does everybody else know?T.C.: About my epitaph?Augie: About me being gay, you gink-head hoser-face!T.C. Not everybody. There's a night watchman at a Dunkin Donuts just outside of Detroit. He doesn't know yet.
— Steve Kluger, My Most Excellent Year
His saliva tasted like the wet dicks of ten thousand lonely truck drivers.
— Chuck Palahniuk, Tell-All
Take this fucking thing off me!" he demanded. "Good morning to you too, Nick," Damian said mildly. He unlocked the door without haste and went to his office, Nick dogging his every footstep."Did you --?""I didn't touch it or myself. Take it off right now!" Nick said angrily.Damian sat down and motioned Nick closer. "We're going to have to have a talk about topping from the bottom. I don't allow that, pet.
— Catt Ford, A Strong Hand
You really want to go out to dinner?" Gabriel shot Rase a skeptical look out of the corner of his eye. 	"As opposed to what?" 	"Getting on your knees and begging me to beat you." There was no inflection in Gabriel's voice, no heat, and no emotion at all. He wasn't even looking at Rase. 	... "I don't want one more than the other," he answered, fully aware that he was being challenged. "They're not interchangeable. I want them both." 	Rase took a breath to calm the pounding in his chest and continued, even though Gabriel wouldn't look at him. "I want to go out to dinner with you, anywhere you want, on a date. And then I want to go back to your place or my place and I want you to beat me until I bleed.
— Anah Crow, Uneven
Does the mainstream media have a liberal bias? On a couple of things, maybe. Compared to the American public at large, probably a slightly higher percentage of journalists, because of thier enhanced power of discernment, realize they know a gay person or two, and are, therefore, less frightened of them.
— Al Franken
Never underestimate the naughtiness factor.
— Eowyn Wood, Naked in the Rain
I wondered if all women did with other women was lie and hug.
— Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit
Just because I’ve been gone from this country for most of my life doesn’t mean I understand it any less. When I was fifteen I left Jamaica. I knew that I was a lesbian then and, because of what I looked like, I was an out lesbian. It was hard for me. It was hard for the thirteen years I was in England, for various reasons, and it’s going to be difficult here as well. I don’t anticipate anything being easy. But I’d rather suffer the chance of someone accosting me for being a dyke than suffer the emotional violence I’d do to myself if I wasn’t honest about who I am.
— Fiona Zedde, Bliss
To those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual,or transgender-let me say- you are not alone. You're struggle, for the end to violence and discrimination, is a shared struggle. Today, I stand with you. And I call upon all countries and people, to stand with you too.A historic shift is underway. We must tackle the violence, decriminalize consensual same sex relationships and end discrimination. We must educate the public. I call on this council and people of conscience to make this happen.The time has come.
— Ban Ki-Moon
Literature is indispensable to the world. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.
— James     Baldwin
I've been taking it easy on you, kid, can tell you're having fun. But it's all sensation to you so far. I haven't pushed you, taken you out of yourself, looked for that place inside where you give yourself to your top. Sometimes pleasure can take a bottom there, but more often it's pain that does.
— Anne Thomas, Just Friends
I've never really addressed those rumors because I figured, 'Why defend yourself against something that is not offensive'?
— Johnny Galecki
Shut up. Take down your pants. I'm going to mark you as mine."Nick squeaked and held onto his belt, fighting Damian for possession of it. "Here? Everyone will hear. They'll know!""I want them to know," Damian said, winning the wrestling match for the belt as was inevitable that he would."London!" Nick gasped. "London!"Damian stopped, his eyes clearing as he noticed how terrified Nick looked. After a long minute, he pulled him into a hug. "I'm sorry, baby. I didn't mean to scare you. I thought you'd like it.
— Catt Ford, A Strong Hand
[Reverend James] Dobson says that the [Spongebob Squarepants] video would be watched by millions of elementary school students and includes a reference to being 'tolerant of differences.' The nerve! Who does Spongebob think he is? Jesus Christ? Tolerance will not be, uh, tolerated. Oh, and tolerance is quite possibly closesly connected to gay-ance.
— Celia Rivenbark, Belle Weather: Mostly Sunny with a Chance of Scattered Hissy Fits
I've never had a boy in here," Martin said in a serious voice. "I've never touched another man, as a matter of fact. . . .except for my father. That was my duty."Blomkvist's temples were pounding. He could not put his weight on his feet without being strangled. He tried to use his fingers to get a grip on the concrete wall behind him, but there was nothing to hold onto."It's time," Martin Vanger said.He put a hand on the strap and pulled down. Blomkvist instantly felt the noose cut into his neck."I've always wondered how a man tastes." He increased the pressure on the noose and leaned forward to kiss Blomkvist on the lips at the same time that a cold voice cut through the room."Hey you fucking creep, in this shithole I've got a monopoly on that one.
— Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Ken brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. I'd been paying so much attention to Ken, I didn't know what happened during the game. I don't think anyone cared too much what the outcome was after Ken's at bat."Do you know who won?" I asked Cooper, who automatically translated into sign language for Shawn.Shawn laughed his odd laugh and signed something back. He looked at Ken, who had an arm wrapped possessively around my waist.Cooper grinned. "Shawn says it looks like you did, Jordie.
— Z.A. Maxfield, Physical Therapy
It was knock or go home and die. Rase knocked. 	The door opened with such alacrity that Rase wondered whether Gabriel had been standing on the other side, drawn to the door by the same uncanny instinct that had inspired him to torment Rase. 	"You said anytime," Rase said, before Gabriel could say anything. 	"I did." Gabriel seemed unperturbed at having his employer show up at his door. He stepped back to let Rase in. 	Rase had been expecting something in keeping with the rest of the building. Instead, Gabriel's apartment was shabby but spotless. It was one main room with a niche for the kitchen and a tiny bathroom that Rase could see through a narrow door that stood ajar. He walked to the center of the room and found himself only feet from Gabriel's bed, a sizable bed with a heavy iron frame. That stopped him in his tracks, and he stood there, wondering what to do with himself. 	"Beer?" Gabriel was so close that Rase could feel Gabriel's breath on his hair. 	"This isn't a social call," Rase said, not even trying to keep his voice steady. 	"Then why are your clothes still on?
— Anah Crow, Uneven
...let me say, on behalf of the entire gay male community, we hate your fucking guts ’cause you landed him. Share, you selfish bastard.
— Andrea Speed, Prey
When I first met Cara, she was twelve and angry at the world. Her parents had split up, her brother was gone, and her mom was infatuated with some guy who was missing vowels in his unpronounceable last name. So I did what any other man in that situation would do: I came armed with gifts. I bought her things that I thought a twelve-year-old would love: a poster of Taylor Lautner, a Miley Cyrus CD, nail polish that glowed in the dark. "I can't wait for the next Twilight movie," I babbled, when I presented her with the gifts in front of Georgie. "My favorite song on the CD is 'If We Were a Movie.' And I almost went with glitter nail polish, but the salesperson said this is much cooler, especially with Halloween coming up."Cara looked at her mother and said, without any judgment, "I think your boyfriend is gay.
— Jodi Picoult, Lone Wolf
Now he had chanced on one of he standard hard-on sessions of the shower, as on both sides of him and across the room three queens sported horizontal members which they turned around from time to time to conceal or display, barely exchanging looks as they resolved. The old men took no interest in this activity, knowing perhaps from long experience that it rarely meant anything or led anywhere, was a brief and helpless surrender to the forcing-house of the shower. In a few seconds the hard-on might pass from one end of the room to the other with the foolish perfection of a Busby Berkeley routine.
— Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library
We're all gonna be gay if we get health care!
— Bill Maher
As soon as I saw that doll all splotched with mud, I saw myself, saw how soiled I was. Or thought I was. From that minute on, I felt liked I'd slipped through a hole in God's pocket. Just took a dive right into the dirt and was lost forever."Greg kissed Faron's hair. "You never hit the dirt. You just slid from one pocket to another. That's what I did too - I took a journey I was meant to take. I know that now."Absorbing this, Faron slanted a puzzled look at Greg. "Which pocket do you suppose I landed in?""This one. The one we're in together. The one I believe we'll stay in."Faron felt a thrill of optimism in his heart. "I never thought of it that way.""I never did either. Until today." Greg once again settled onto Faron's chest. His cheek moved noticeable into a smile. "God isn't small, honey. God has a lot of freakin' pockets. And we just found the one we belong in.
— K.Z. Snow, A Hole in God's Pocket
Just don’t stare at my ass, Landemere,” he added.“I wasn’t staring at your ass,” Arranulf, who had been staring at his ass, said.
— Andrew Ashling, The Invisible Chains - Part 1: Bonds of Hate
I'm gay above the waist.
— Pete Wentz
I think they would like the songs betterif I left out the names, or changedthe pronouns.
— David Levithan, How They Met, and Other Stories
Brody's not gay. But then he kisses a boy. So he might be gay? No, Brody's not gay. But he loves this boy. So after much delaying, debating, and waiting, the answer comes clear...nothing is ever perfectly straight. It's slash.
— Dart Gray, The Introspective Debate of Owen Brody
[Button] If Gay and Lesbian people are given civil rights, soon everyone will want them
— James Howe, Totally Joe