Emmanuel Esplain

“There are some things about myself I can’t explain to anyone. There are some things I don’t understand at all. I can’t tell what I think about things or what I’m after. I don’t know what my strengths are or what I’m supposed to do about them. But if I start thinking about these things in too much detail the whole thing gets scary. And if I get scared I can only think about myself. I become really self-centered, and without meaning to, I hurt people. So I’m not such a wonderful human being.”
― Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes

“Protection, therefore, against tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays

“I believe in you," he says, his voice hushed and almost reverent. "That's more faith than I ever thought I'd have.”
― Ally Condie, Matched

“They're just memories now. Time to write them off.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides