Quotes

Words worth keeping

2,684 quotes — from Indian and world voices, in English, Hindi and Urdu — while our publisher catalog grows.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

— Mae West
General

When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

— George R.R. Martin
Friendship Solitude

An Unbreakable Vow?" said Ron, looking stunned. "Nah, he can’t have.... Are you sure?""Yes I’m sure," said Harry. "Why, what does it mean?""Well, you can’t break an Unbreakable Vow...""I’d worked that much out for myself, funnily enough.

— J.K. Rowling
Humor

Curiouser and curiouser!

— Lewis Carroll
General

Your silence will not protect you.

— Audre Lorde
General

The past is always tense, the future perfect.

— Zadie Smith
General

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

— Charles Dickens
General

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.

— Charles Dickens
General

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

— Nelson Mandela
Courage & Strength Fear

Atticus, he was real nice.""Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.

— Harper Lee
Inspirational

He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.

— Jonathan Safran Foer
Sadness & Pain

Patience, grasshopper," said Maia. "Good things come to those who wait.""I always thought that was 'Good things come to those who do the wave,'" said Simon. "No wonder I've been so confused all my life.

— Cassandra Clare
General

The Very first moment I beheld him, my heart was irrevocably gone.

— Jane Austen
Relationships

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

— J.K. Rowling
Death & Loss

To err is human, to forgive, divine.

— Alexander Pope
Kindness Success

World quotes adapted from the Abirate/english_quotes dataset (CC BY 4.0). Indian-figure and Hindi/Urdu quotes are a curated compilation of widely-attributed public sayings.