The Here And Now Book Quotes & Sayings

We're in a state of crisis where our nation is literally ripping apart at the seams right now, and lawlessness is occurring from one ocean to the other. And we're seeing the fulfillment of the Book of Judges here in our own time, where every man doing that which is right in his own eyes-in other words, anarchy. — Michele Bachmann

I don't think my book is any more shocking than if I went out right now and brought back your local newspaper and found a story that happened around here yesterday or the day before that's just as shocking as anything in my book. — Donald Ray Pollock

Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose, she read, and so reading she was ascending, she felt, on to the top, on to the summit. How satisfying! How restful! All the odds and ends of the day stuck to this magnet; her mind felt swept, felt clean. And then there it was, suddenly entire; she held it in her hands, beautiful and reasonable, clear and complete, here
the sonnet.
But she was becoming conscious of her husband looking at her. He was smiling at her, quizzically, as if he were ridiculing her gently for being asleep in broad daylight, but at the same time he was thinking, Go on reading. You don't look sad now, he thought. And he wondered what she was reading, and exaggerated her ignorance, her simplicity, for he liked to think that she was not clever, not book-learned at all. He wondered if she understood what she was reading. Probably not, he thought. She was astonishingly beautiful. Her beauty seemed to him, if that were possible, to increase. — Virginia Woolf

I really, really wanted to lose awareness of the here and now. The best way for me to do that was bury myself in a book. — Charlaine Harris

Well I'm looking at history," she said, pointing at me. "You used to be a friend, but now you stink as a friend! I came here to give you a second chance and you make me smell the crotch of an old book. — Jack Gantos

I am writing this book because we're all going to die - In the loneliness of my own life, my father dead, my brother dead, my mother faraway, my sister and my wife far away, nothing here but my own tragic hands that once were guarded by a world, a sweet attention, that now are left to guide and disappear their own way into the common dark of all our deaths, sleeping in me raw bed, alone and stupid: with just this one pride and consolation: my broke heart in the general despair and opened up inwards to the Lord, I made a supplication in this dream — Jack Kerouac

What is happening here?" Her voice is unsteady as she says a line that's not in the script.
"You tell me," I say, and I'm not even sure where my own voice is coming from.
Then she turns around, uncrosses her legs, and mirrors me, kneeling. "You wrote that scene for me, didn't you?"
I nod. My throat is dry. I can barely speak.
"That day you saw me with Shelby outside the theater, right?"
"Yes." I swallow. I'm an open book now.
"Did you write it because it makes the show better? Or did you write it for me? — Lauren Blakely

God's M.O., he reflected, is to transmute evil into good. If He is active here, He is doing that now, although our eyes can't perceive it; the process lies hidden beneath the surface of reality, and emerges only later. To, perhaps, our waiting heirs. Paltry people who will not know the dreadful war we've gone through, and the losses we took, unless in some footnote in a minor history book they catch a notion. Some brief mention. With no list of the fallen. — Philip K. Dick

So here you are now, ready to attack the first lines of the first page. You prepare to recognize the unmistakable tone of the author. No. You don't recognize it at all. But now that you think about it, who ever said this author had an unmistakable tone? On the contrary, he is known as an author who changes greatly from one book to the next. And in these very changes you recognize him as himself. — Italo Calvino

Let's imagine I happen to be writing some sort of truth here. By the time you read this, I might have changed my mind. Ten years from now, I would likely put it differently. By then I may regret that I wrote this. And regardless of how I feel then, I'll bet that if you reread my book twenty years from now, you'll have changed, so the book will have changed, too. So much for changeless truth. — Frank Schaeffer

So here we are, a pack of Homo sapiens thinking that we know whether a person is female or male. Now that I've spent a few years researching and talking with people who fall under the transgender umbrella, I am confident saying that male/ female is not the only way to describe gender. The people I've come to know and love in the course of writing and photographing this book have helped me better understand the fluidity of gender and sex.

This lesson for me also reinforces what I've been writing about for years: once we get to know individuals who may be different from ourselves, it is less likely we will be wary of them. And maybe, just maybe, we will learn a little more about ourselves. — Susan Kuklin

Misha's importance and distinctiveness are beginning to be noticed, there's beginning to be some kind of rip-tide here that will soon become a wave of recognition for a book that the world is beginning to catch up to ... We weren't ready before. We'd better be ready now. Because it's the 21st century, any minute now, and that means that Misha's time has come. In more ways than one. — John Shirley

She attended the French performance, but the play's content now had a connection to her life. She read a book and the book invariably had lines with sparks from her mind, the fire of her emotions flickered here and there, and words spoken the night before were written down, as if the author had overheard how her heart beat.
The forest held the same trees, but their sound had taken on special meaning; she had established a vibrant consonance with them. The birds did not simply twitter and chirp but were saying something to each other. Everything around her spoke and responded to her mood; a flower would blossom and she seemed to hear its breathing.
pp. 256-257 — Ivan Goncharov

It is now 55 years since my last book report, which is a long time to live with a guilty conscience. So here it is: In the spring of 1956 I wrote a highly favorable review of the Bible without reading a word of it, and it was the last A I ever got in English. Why it has taken so long to come clean I'm not sure, except I have always been extremely sensitive about my academic reputation. — Pete Dexter

The willingness and ability to live fully in the now eludes many people. While eating your appetizer, don't be concerned with dessert. While reading a book, notice where your thoughts are. While on vacation, be there instead of thinking about what should have been done and what has to be done when returning home. Don't let the elusive present moment get used up by thoughts that aren't in the here and now. There — Wayne W. Dyer

I do see why Nikki likes the novel, as it's written so well, but her liking it makes me worry now that Nikki doesn't really believe in silver linings. Because she says The Great Gatsby is the greatest novel ever written by an American, and yet it ends so sadly. One thing's for sure. Nikki is going to be very proud of me when I tell her I finally read her favorite book. Here's another surprise: I'm going to read all the novels on her American Literature class syllabus, just to make her proud. To let her know that I am really interested in what she loves. — Matthew Quick

Spike optioned my first book, 'Now the Hell Will Start,' and he trusted me to write the screenplay, too. That was an awesome learning experience - I grew up watching Spike's movies, and here he was giving me handwritten notes about structure and dialogue. His feedback taught me so much about how to craft a cinematic narrative. — Brendan I. Koerner

We met three years prior, in 2003, when I created the first-ever Shakespeare program in a solitary confinement unit, and we spent three years working together in that unit. Now we have received unprecedented permission to work together, alone, unsupervised, to create a series of Shakespeare workbooks for prisoners. Newton is gesticulating so animatedly that it draws the attention of an officer walking by our little classroom. He pops his head inside. "Everything okay in here?" he asks. "Just reading Shakespeare," I reply. He shakes his head and walks on. "That is crazy!" Newton repeats, his head still in the book. A record ten and a half consecutive years in solitary confinement, and he's not crazy, he's not dangerous - he's reading Shakespeare. And maybe, just maybe, it is because he's reading Shakespeare that he is not crazy, or dangerous. — Laura Bates

And as for going into a bookstore and not finding a book suitable for your 13-year-old ... maybe you should do some research before you go in? And I'm being serious here. There are a bunch of great blogs that will tell you the content of books. Reading Teen is one of them, and I've seen others, and I love what they do because they make YA books feel safe to protective parents. There are plenty of YA books that celebrate joy and beauty. Now, I would argue that many of them are also the "dark" books to which the article refers, and that saying they aren't suggests a pretty inattentive reader ... but that's neither here nor there. I'm not trying to bicker with the careful parents. I'm just saying: do some research and you'll be surprised what you find.
So, that's what I'm going to say about it. — Veronica Roth

This rough magic I here abjure and when I have required some heavenly music, which even now I do, to work mine end upon their senses that this airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I'll drown my book. — William Shakespeare

Until the arrival of Spanish troops in 1920, Chefchaouen had been visited by just three Westerners. Two were missionary explorers: Charles de Foucauld, a Frenchman who spent just an hour in the town in 1883, disguised as a Jewish rabbi, and William Summers, an American who was poisoned by the townsfolk here in 1892. The third, in 1889, was the British journalist Walter Harris, whose main impulse, as described in his book, Land of an African Sultan, was "the very fact that there existed within thirty hours' ride of Tangier a city in which it was considered an utter impossibility for a Christian to enter". Thankfully, Chefchaouen today is more welcoming towards outsiders, and a number of the Medina's newer guesthouses now include owners hailing from Britain, Italy and the former Christian enemy, Spain. — Daniel Jacobs

Having pursued this matter of Christian-traditional relationships as far as I have, it might be concluded that the rest of the book is permeated with references to it. That is not the case. All I have wanted to do is to fix in literary cement what amounts to one of the most incredible milestones in Christian church history - a stunning reversal of opinion where Native American religion is concerned. I harbor no illusions that such developments as these will escalate into anything like acceptance by all, or even a majority of, the Christian churches. But it is a strong beginning, and I, together with the Native Americans, am exceedingly grateful for it! Now though, everything that needs to be said about this has been said, and from here on the book is entirely Fools Crow. Among — Thomas E. Mails

With the publication of this book we, as non-Jews, are doing our small part to stand up for the truth. So let us state unequivocally here and now: the Holocaust happened EXACTLY as per the history books. Period. Fact. No debate whatsoever. — James Morcan

I was very comfortable here, and getting on with my book. If you want to know, I am just writing an ending for it. I had thought of putting: and he lived happily ever afterwards to the end of his days. It is a good ending, and none the worse for having been used before. Now I shall have to alter that: it does not look like coming true; and evidently there will have to be several more chapters, if I live to write them. It is a frightful nuisance. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Abate the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,
That would reduce these bloody days again
And make poor England weep in streams of blood!
Let them not live to taste this land's increase
That would with treason wound this fair land's peace!
Now civil wounds are stopped, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say amen! — William Shakespeare

I divested myself of despair and fear when I came here. Now there is no more catching one's own eye in the mirror, there are no bad books, no plastic, no insurance premiums, and of cours eno illness. Contrition does not exist, nor gnashing of teeth. No one howls as the first clod of earth hits the casket. The poor we no longer have with us. Our calm hearts strike only the hour, and God, as promised, proves to be mercy clothed in light. — Jane Kenyon

Irene closed her book and stared at the older Van Holtz.
"I don't dislike him. But that was recent. I used to not like him but he's been very kind since I've been here. So now I like him. I'd almost say we are friendly ... but perhaps that's too big a leap at this stage."
He gave a soft laugh. "I see. Are you always this ... uh ... "
"Brutally honest?"
"I was going to say direct, but brutally honest works as well."
"Yes. I am. And I know - it's a character flaw."
"Not at all. I love honest people."
"Everyone says that ... until I say something they don't like. Then I'm a bitch. — Shelly Laurenston

But the truth is that I don't want to simply offer others a fleeting moment of "inspiration." I want my story to spark real change. An aha moment becomes most meaningful when it leads us to do more. Dream bigger. Move past our so-called limitations. Defy expectations. Bounce back with the resilience that every single one of us was born with. I didn't write this book because I want you to say, "Wow, look at what that girl overcame - good for her." I'm sharing my story because I want you to see what's possible in your own life. Right here. Right now. Starting the second you pick up your pen and create your own amazing narrative. The words of the Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu have always resonated with me: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." What follows is my first step. My first stumble. My first dance. My first dream. — Amy Purdy

There is a girl behind the desk in blue uniform, with dark red hair, spread fanlike from her head in lacquered splendour; she looks at them without interest. 'Hallo, dolling,' says Lubijova, 'Here is Professor Petwurt, reservation of the Min'stratii Kulturi, confirmation here.' 'So, Petvurt?' the girl says, taking a pen from her hair and running it languidly down the columns of a large book. 'Da, Pervert, so, here is. Passipotti. ' 'She likes your passport, don't give it to her, says Lubijova, 'Give it to me. I know these people well, they are such bureaucrats. Now, dolling, tell me, how long do you keep?' 'Tomorrow,' says the girl, 'It registers with the police. — Malcolm Bradbury

This book is just not meant for pretty reading. It's not for coffee-table curiosity and other such cameo appearances. Think of it instead as industrial-grade survival gear. Duct tape and superglue. Leather straps lashed around it. Old shoelaces maybe. In tight double knots. Whatever it takes to keep it all together. Because this is war. The fight of your life. A very real enemy has been strategizing and scheming against you, assaulting you, coming after your emotions, your mind, your man, your child, your future. In fact, he's doing it right this second. Right where you're sitting. Right where you are. But I say his reign of terror stops here. Stops now. He might keep coming, but he won't have victory anymore. Because it all starts failing when we start praying. — Priscilla Shirer

In the fairy tale the painting represents the here and now. The book is actually divided into five sections, through which the key character, the muse, leads us. — Kit Williams

Sudden I stopped. I was out of breath. I asked myself, "What is this all about? What is the meaning of this ceaseless rush? This is ridiculous!" Then I declared independence, and said, "I do not care if I go to dinner. I do not care whether I make a talk. I do not have to go to this dinner and I do not have to make a speech." So deliberately and slowly I walked back to my room and took my time about unlocking the door. I telephoned the man downstairs and said, "If you want to eat, go ahead. If you want to save a place for me, I will be down after a while, but I am not going to rush any more." So I removed my coat, sat down, took off my shoes, put my feet up on the table, and just sat. Then I opened the Bible and very slowly read aloud the 121st Psalm, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help." I closed the book and had a little talk with myself, saying, "Come on now, start living a slower and more relaxed life," and then I affirmed, "God is here and His — Norman Vincent Peale

I couldn't get to sleep. The book lay nearby. A thin object on the divan. So strange. Between two cardboard covers were noises, doors, howls, horses, people. All side by side, pressed tightly against one another. Boiled down to little black marks. Hair, eyes, voices, nails, legs, knocks on doors, walls, blood, beards, the sound of horseshoes, shouts. All docile, blindly obedient to the little black marks. The letters run in mad haste, now here, now there. The a's, f's, y's, k's all run. They gather together to create a horse or a hailstorm. They run again. Now they create a dagger, a night, a murder. Then streets, slamming doors, silence. Running and running. Never stopping. — Ismail Kadare

Isn't it weird?" he said, glancing up as I measured salt. "All the variety that life offers? Here we sit, me reading expressions of creativity." He held up the poetry book, which to my dismay, was now worn and dog-eared. "And you doing scientific and magical calculations. We're thinking, cerebral beings one minute ... and the next, completely given over to physical acts of passion. How do we do that? Back and forth, mind and body? How can creatures like us go from extreme to extreme? — Richelle Mead

Okay? Now you know all this stuff about me, and I still don't know anything about you. I don't even know if you're still there. Are you? And if you are, can I trust you with the rest? I still want to know - are you a good person? Maybe that's not fair of me to ask, since I haven't even figured out whether I'm a good person or not. I guess you can be the judge. Here's the deal. If you're okay with me so far, then keep reading. But if you've gotten this far and you think I'm the lowest of the low and I don't deserve to have my own book, then maybe you should stop right now. Because it only gets worse from here. (Or better, depending on how you look at it.) Signed, your friend (?), RK — James Patterson

'THIS ROOM HAS MYSTERY LIKE A TRANCE' This room has mystery like a trance Of wine ; forget-me-nots of you Are chair and couch, the books your Fingers touched. And now that you Are absent here the silence scrapes A secret rust from everything; While sudden wreaths of sorrow's Dust uncover emptiness like halls To stumble through, and terror falls — Kenneth Patchen

The first doorway (or chakra) is what I call in the book, the Doorway of Safety. This doorway relates to feeling safe in life and being present in the here and now. It's only when we are really grounded and safe that we're able to relax and open up our hearts. — Marci Shimoff

I suppose I ought to think up some dramatic, quotable phrase for Public Information and the history books, but I'm damned if any of them come to mind. Besides, admitting the truth wouldn't sound too good ( ... ) The truth, Russell, is that now the moment's here, I'm scared shitless. Somehow I don't think even Public Information could turn that into good copy. — David Weber

I'm so proud of you, and so amused at your discomfort in being recognized for you dedication and skill."
"Amused? Here's another funny for you. You're getting a medal, too."
He dropped her hand. "What? I'm a civilian, as you continually remind me."
"The Civilian Medal of Merit, and they don't given them out like candy, pal, especially to shady characters."
"I don't think it's appropriate."
She loved it, just loved when he turned all dignified.
"Oh, it is, and how I get to be amused. You're the one who started sticking his nose in, then his whole body. Now you're going to have to stand up there on Wednesday afternoon - fourteen hundred, so put that in your book - and take what you get. And I'm pretty damn proud of you, too, so suck it up. — J.D. Robb

The Psalter is the prayer book of Jesus Christ in the truest sense of the word. He prayed the Psalter and now it has become his prayer for all time ... we understand how the Psalter can be prayer to God and yet God's own Word, precisely because here we encounter the praying Christ ... because those who pray the psalms are joining in with the prayer of Jesus Christ, their prayer reaches the ears of God. Christ has become their intercessor ... — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Christmas Eve, I give him packages which I open for him, since the bows and paper represent more labor than he could manage: music videos by the Nashville singers he thinks particularly sexy, fleece-lined slippers decorated with images of bacon and eggs, and a book about breeds of dogs. He says he wishes he had something for me to open, but I don't want anything except to have him here. There's nothing more he could give me than his life, right now, his being with me. — Mark Doty

Ohh,' said the girl with a sad tilt of her head.
It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventully come to understand meant, 'Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don't realize there's a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone's poor and they don't care about girls there, and I bet that's why you're in our country even, and now everyone's probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I'll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you're just here to kill Americans?'
There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first. — Adam Rex

Chapter One. The Bride." He held up the book then. "I'm reading it to you for relax." He practically shoved the book in my face. "By S. Morgenstern. Great Florinese writer. The Princess Bride. He too came to America. S. Morgenstern. Dead now in New York. The English is his own. He spoke eight tongues." Here my father put down the book and held up all his fingers. "Eight. Once in Florin City ... — William Goldman

I'm not sayin' that the book wasn't important. I'm sayin' there are more important. I'm sayin' that all the things that were important about the book ... well, they weren't really anything to do with the book itself. They're more up here-' at this point Mr Peterson tapped his head, close to the temple- 'and they haven't gone anywhere. Now do you understand? — Gavin Extence

When we think of the masterpieces that nobody praised and nobody read, back there in the past, we feel an impatient superiority to the readers of the past. If we had been there, we can't help feeling, we'd have known that Moby-Dick was a good book - -why, how could anyone help knowing?
But suppose someone says to us, "Well, you're here now: what's our own Moby-Dick? What's the book that, a hundred years from now, everybody will look down on us for not having liked?" What do we say then? — Randall Jarrell

The world outside of me has no meaning independent of my thinking it. (pauses to look) I look out of the window. A garden. Trees. Grass. A young woman in a chair reading a book. I think: chair. So she is sitting. I think: book. So she is reading. Now the young woman touches her hair where it's come undone. But how can we be sure there is a world of phenomena, a woman reading in a garden? Perhaps the only thing that's real is my sensory experience, which has the form of a woman reading- in a universe which is in fact empty! But Immanuel Kant says- no! Because what I perceive as reality includes concepts which I cannot experience through the senses. Time and space. Cause and effect. Relations between things. Without me there is something wrong with this picture. The trees, the grass, the woman are merely- oh, she's coming! (nervously)- she's coming in here-! I say, don't leave!-where are you going? — Tom Stoppard

Hunger
You are only here now, and then you are gone. So be hungry. Hunger toward beauty. Hunger toward love. Hunger towards the unimaginable and unthinkable. — Carew Papritz

Reading the book now means that one can, if one wants, play Fantasy Literature
match writers off against each other and see who won over the long haul. Faulkner or Henry Green? I reckon the surprise champ was P.G. Wodehouse, as elegant and resourceful a prose stylist as anyone held up for our inspection here ... he has turned out to be as enduring as anyone apart from Orwell. Jokes, you see. People do like jokes.
(Hornby's thoughts after reading "Enemies of Promise" by Cyril Connolly) — Nick Hornby

I sent letters of enquiry to all persons whose names were given, and received not one reply. There are several ways of explaining. One is that it is probable that persons who have experiences such as those told of in this book, receive so many "crank letters" that they answer none. Dear me - once upon a time, I enjoyed a sense of amusement and superiority toward "cranks". And now here am I, a "crank", myself. Like most writers, I have the moralist somewhere in my composition, and here I warn - take care, oh, reader, with whom you are amused, unless you enjoy laughing at yourself. — Charles Fort

I was walking up and down the rows of books at the antiquarian bookseller's in Karlova Street. Now and then I would take a look out the shop window. It started to snow heavily; holding a book in my hand I watched the snowflakes swirling in front of the wall of St Savior's Church. I returned to my book, savoring its aroma and allowing my eyes to flit over its pages, reading here and there the fragment of a sentence that suddenly sparkled mysteriously because it was taken out of context. I was in no hurry; I was happy to be in a room that smelled pleasantly of old books, where it was warm and quiet, where the pages rustled as they were turned, as if the books were sighing in their sleep. I was glad I didn't have to go out into the darkness and the snowstorm. — Wieslaw Mysliwski

On the other side of that big-ass mirror, a video camera was watching us. In about ten seconds, it was going to start spitting static at itself, and everything it saw was going to break up into a fuzzy, gray-white wash, rolling up and down, that wouldn't be admissible as evidence on Judge Judy. Those missing frames would last a little less than a quarter of a minute, consolidate themselves back
into a semblance of reality, and then I would theoretically go walking right back out of here.
Between now and that moment, there stretched an infinite ocean of potential
time. Time enough to walk around the world. Time enough to fall in love, get
married on a white beach under purple stars, write a book of poems about
truest passion, have a few good and bloody screaming matches, get divorced in a court of autumn elves and gypsy moths, then set the ink-stained, tear-streaked pages of your text ablaze. — Clinton Boomer

Look, I didn't ask for any of this, but I'm here now. I get that it's dangerous. I get that I'm fat. I get that I'm about as far from prepared for this insanity as you can get. But I'll tell you something about me: I don't quit. So enough with the let's-scare-the-fat-girl routine, okay? — Bill Blais

Books are similarly dangerous. The worst kind can change your life. It was a book that got me to the human world. And it is books that now keep me here. I don't know how some humans can stand to read so much. How can they bear to continue their dull, normal lives after reading such extraordinary ones? — Parinita Shetty

I mean when the book first came out it was not a bestseller, but it got good reviews and at that point I was done writing about Andy, done talking about Andy ... but now, I kind of love it. All these smart, attractive young people think I'm cool! So here I am a guy in his sixties with all of these interesting friends in their twenties. It's very stimulating and keeps me very much in the present. — Bob Colacello

I hope you have a book telling others how you do what you do. If you answered no, then I challenge you to spend the next couple of hours reading this book and then, in the next ten days implementing what you've learned here. When you realize the value of the impact your book will make, your decision to write will be a no-brainer! Using this very simple, powerful system you will soon be thinking about your second book, and third book. You will want to recruit your spouse, children and parents to write. You will understand that everyone has a unique voice whose legacy is to be forever captured in print. They key is to begin. Dreaming about getting started is not going to make it happen. Action is everything so make a promise to yourself to commit and take action. — Kytka Hilmar-Jezek

A word of warning here. The events as you remember them will never be the same in your memory once you have turned them into a memoir. For years I have worried that if I turn all of my life into literature, I won't have any real life left - just stories about it. And it is a realistic concern: it does happen like that. I am no longer sure I remember how it felt to be twenty and living in Spain after my parents died; my book about it stands now between me and my memories. When I try to think about that time, what comes to mind most readily is what I wrote. — Judith Barrington

Calvin: I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! Want to see my book report?
Hobbes: (Reading Calvin's paper) "The Dynamics of Interbeing and Monological Imperatives in Dick and Jane: A Study in Psychic Transrelational Gender modes."
Calvin: Academia, here I come! — Bill Watterson

There will never again be a day exactly like today. There will never again be a moment exactly like this moment. After my next birthday, I will never again be the age I am right now. After midnight tonight, today will be part of history. Someday I'll be dying and I'll wish I'd done all the things I want to do now. Someday I'll be dead and I won't be able to do anything. But today, right now, I'm alive. And yet I'm writing nonsense on the back of my literature book. But I'm alive. And yet I'm just sitting here. But I'm alive. — Ryan Miller

I don't think that the despiritualised, dehumanised culture in which we live, the McDonalds and Disney culture, does our internal lives, our mythological lives, any favours at all. In other words, to be an Outsider in this culture now is to be looking inside at a plastic world, and I think it's easier to critique that world if I don't belong to it ... In Hollywood where I live now, there's a lot of having lunches, a lot of going to parties ... and I will have no part of that. I'm certainly not very good at it, I don't like it and I feel a little weird about it. I don't want to be part of the problem, I want to be a part of the solution, and the only way I can help solve the problem of the plasticity of our world is by writing, by painting and by making my work, so I stay where I can do that, which is at my desk, in my studio. I will venture out when I need to sell a book or exhibit my paintings, but the rest of the time my job is to be here and imagine. — Clive Barker

I hadn't read any of the books before, but I have since we started. It's so funny because I'm reading a book of a person that I'm playing. Then, here's this person that she's in a relationship with and, what we're shooting now, we're not in a relationship. I'm getting a prequel and a history to these people in the book. It's very odd. It's very weird because it's like The Twilight Zone. — Angie Harmon

If they come to this forest, to us here, seeking shelter from the havoc that has been brought upon their lands, at the hands of evil, I say come. I say join us in this fight! The royal throne of Northbrook no longer resides in Gamlock. It is here. Now. In this place. You are its soldiers, I am its king, and we will work together to unite all who are willing to fight alongside us! (Wharick) — Madison Thorne Grey

We are bastards of the gods, Sorvus, you and I. I once shared the dream you seem to think you are now living. The dream of living here, in Northbrook, the birthplace of our mothers." Thais turned his head to the trees. He heard something. "Such deception. — Madison Thorne Grey

Oh, wait, okay, you need my help. What do you need? Do you need practice kissing girls? That's totally fine. I can do that. Come here, I'll kiss you right now.
The creak of the door made Kami look away from Holly and Holly look up from the book.
Ash looked as if he seriously wondered why it was always him. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Until a few days ago, humans had been little more than legend to him, and now here he was in their world. It was like stepping into the pages of a book
a book alive with color and fragrance, filth and chaos
and the blue-haired girl moved through it all like a fairy through a story, the light treating her differently than it did others, the air seemed to gather around her like held breath. As if this whole place was a story about her. — Laini Taylor

There is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him ... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is. — Khaled Hosseini

Yes well, things are different in other countries. But you see, Jen will be turning 18 in just a few weeks and that is why Decebel is here now, because ... "
Before Sally could continue to dig her deep, dark grave Decebel stepped in.
"You will tell me how she is." Sally glared at him and he reluctantly added, "Please."
Loftis, Quinn (2011-11-18). Blood Rites: Book 2 Grey Wolves Series (The Grey Wolves Series) (pp. 41-42). Kindle Edition. — Quinn Loftis

A stage adaptation of The Giver has been performed in cities and towns across the USA for years. More recently an opera has been composed and performed. And soon there will be a film. Does The Giver have the same effect when it is presented in a different way: It's hard to know. A book, to me is almost sacrosanct: such an individual and private thing. The reader brings his or her own history and beliefs and concerns, and reads in solitude, creating each scene from his own imagination as he does. There is no fellow ticket-holder in the next seat. The important thing is that another medium
stage, film, music
doesn't obliterate a book. The movie is here now, on a big screen, with stars and costumes and a score. But the book hasn't gone away. It has simply grown up, grown larger, and begun to glisten in a new way. — Lois Lowry

Is the phrase "Deliciously politically incorrect" used with the same gay abandon in the U.S.? You come across it all the time here, and it usually means, quite simply, that a book or a movie or a TV program is racist and/or sexist and/or homophobic; there is a certain kind of cultural commentator who mysteriously associates these prejudices with a Golden Age during which we were allowed to do a lot of things that we are not allowed to do now. (The truth is that there's no one stopping them from doing anything. What they really object to is being recognized as the antisocial pigs that they really are.) — Nick Hornby