Get Out What You Put In Quote Quotes & Sayings

Still. Four words.
And I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog:
Dear Neil,
If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children's area, what would it be?
Thanks!
Lynn
I pondered a bit. I'd said a lot about books and kids' reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me, and this is what I wrote:
I'm not sure I'd put a quote up, if it was me, and I had a library wall to deface. I think I'd just remind people of the power of stories, and why they exist in the first place. I'd put up the four words that anyone telling a story wants to hear. The ones that show that it's working, and that pages will be turned:
... and then what happened? — Neil Gaiman

I also say you can tell your true friends, by the ones who put a bucket by your bed when your drunk and going to be sick - (my quote - so proud) — J. Yates

Encourage literally came from "in courage." The courage is put "into" you from outside. Our character and abilities grow through internalizing from others what we do not possess in ourselves. — Henry Cloud

Always write exactly what you're feeling at the exact moment when writing something like poetry or an emotional novel. Put yourself, pour all emotions into your work ... make yourself cry, feel joy if you are writing joyful things, feel lovey if it calls for it ... just put your heart and soul into all that you do ... then you will be a good writer when you can make whoever reads your work, feel. -Nina Jean Slack — Nina Jean Slack

Second, I ran across an article by John H. Johnson, the late publisher of Ebony magazine. In the '50s when he tried to start the magazine, the white establishment said he wouldn't have anybody to put in the magazine - there were no middle- or upper-class African Americans, no black celebrities. He couldn't get any money to publish it. But he said, 'There is no defense against an excellence that meets a pressing public need,' and proved them wrong. I have the quote on my wall, and that became my strategy. — Peter M. Senge

No person can claim to be anything more or anything less than his or her individual assimilation of a lifelong symposium of inimitable physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual occurrences. Simply put, we each place our own individualized stamp upon the meaning of life. How we live, how we struggle, and how we die reflects what life means to each of us. We are all students of life, we are a product of what we pay attention to, what we observe, and experience, and what subjects arrest our minds. — Kilroy J. Oldster

I know you're just trying to be kind. But the world isn't always kind. So sometimes you have to know what you're up against, and match it.' He held up a hand to stop the words about to be spoken; I could see the vague shape of it hovering in the blackness. 'I know it's not right to fight fire with fire. But sometimes, it's all we've got." His voice grew soft, and, in the darkness, his hand found mine, squeezed. 'Don't put your fire out, Kaitlyn. Use it, or pass the torch. — Mackenzie Herbert

when they put unknown at the end of a quote, that means they probably don't no how to spell anonymous" -unknown — Tri T. Ha

While the man is putting on it's shoes, the woman can buy dozens of high heels. — Ljupka Cvetanova

Those who find something in I Thirst, who can relate to a project so close to my heart, instantly become a sort of "friend." Whenever people come to me and tell me that they appreciated I Thirst or thank me for writing it, I feel that I have done something right
not because I am one of the greats, but because the story spoke to them in some way, in a way that perhaps was universal but uniquely their own all the same. I put out my story, but the readers made it their own. — Gina Marinello-Sweeney

If I asked you about love, you'd probably quote me a sonnet. But you've never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. — Robin Williams

Finally, Everybody Hates Chris is on, isn't that right Alice?? Plus, I dont know why they say to put author name for a stinkin' quote.. — Erin Hunter

I quote Tolkien because he puts it better. But I can still open a can of whup ass all over you."
You're right," I told him. "He does put it better. — Karen Chance

When I write, I write obsessively. I try to pace myself, but some fires are too hot to put out. — Carla H. Krueger

It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we mean to hold on to it, - this is strong, clear, well-defined language; it has the respectability of truth to it; and, if we may judge by their practice, the majority of the world will bear us out in it. But when he begins to put on a long face, and snuffle, and quote Scripture, I incline to think he isn't much better than he should be. — Harriet Beecher Stowe