I'm a good person. In most ways. But I'm beginning to think that being a good person in most ways doesn't count for anything very much, if you're a bad person in one way.

I read the fuck out of every book I can get my hands on.

It seems to me now that the plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.

If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier.

Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.

We spent all those years talking about stuff we had in common, and the last few months noticing all the ways we were different and it broke both of our hearts.

…I've had a bad week." What's happened?" Nothing's happened. I've had a bad week in my head, is all.

I've been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking, between you and me, I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains.

I lost the plot for a while then. And I lost the subplot, the script, the soundtrack, the intermission, my popcorn, the credits, and the exit sign.

Even bad times have good things in them to make you feel alive.

When you're unhappy, I guess everything in the world - reading, eating, sleeping - has something buried somewhere inside it that just makes you unhappier.

It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party.

The plain state of being human is dramatic enough for anyone; you don't need to be a heroin addict or a performance poet to experience extremity. You just have to love someone.

What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?

Sarcasm and compassion are two of the qualities that make life on Earth tolerable.

Hard is trying to rebuild yourself, piece by piece, with no instruction book, and no clue as to where all the important bits are supposed to go.

It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.

Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostagic and hopeful all at the same time.

Everyone knows how to talk, and no one knows what to say.

I've committed to nothing...and that's just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments.

I'm very good at the past. It's the present I can't understand.

“I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.”

“I thought I was your destination. Looks like I was just another stop on the line.”

“We make choices. No one else can live our lives for us. And we must confront and accept the consequences of our actions.”

“I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.”

“We often confuse what we wish for with what is.”

“The sky had never seemed so sky; the world had never seemed so world.”

“What do stars do? They shine.”

“There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.”

“I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating.”

“I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating.”

“I don't think you should ever insult people unintentionally: if you're doing it, you ought to mean it.”

“It's not hard to own something. Or everything. You just have to know that it's yours, and then be willing to let it go.”

“It doesn't matter that you didn't believe in us," said Mr. Ibis. "We believed in you.”

“You're brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don't care if you are imaginary.”

“There is a proverbial saying chiefly concerned with warning against too closely calculating the numerical value of un-hatched chicks.”

“We wrapped our dreams in words and patterned the words so that they would live forever, unforgettable.”

“We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves.”

“As sure as water's wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end.”

“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel.”

“Potentially evil. Potentially good, too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality waiting to be shaped.”

“You're no help," he told the lime. This was unfair. It was only a lime; there was nothing special about it at all. It was doing the best it could.”

“I have no plans to love you," said Coraline. "No matter what. You can't make me love you.”

“For love is no part of the dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel.”

“Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”

“Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.”

“As we age, we become our parents; live long enough and we see faces repeat in time.”

“Mirrors,' she said, 'are never to be trusted.”

“Because,” said Thor, “when something goes wrong, the first thing I always think is, it is Loki’s fault. It saves a lot of time.”

“Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.”