Saul Patton

“Hello," he greeted her cheerfully. "You must be Alan of Trebond. You're very hardy to have made it this far the first day. Has anyone said what we try to learn in here?"
Alanna said the first thing that came to her lips. "The only thing I know is that I jump when I'm told to and I have no free time.”
― Tamora Pierce

“You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does.”
― Philip Pullman, Clockwork, or All Wound Up

“I have it in my head that when we’re born, God writes things down on our hearts. See, on some people’s hearts he writes “happy” and on some people’s hearts he writes “sad” and on some people’s hearts he writes “crazy” and on some people’s hearts he writes “genius” and on some people’s hearts he writes “angry” and on some people’s hearts he writes “winner” and on some people’s hearts he writes “loser.”

I keep seeing a newspaper being tossed around in the wind. And then a strong gust comes along and the newspaper is thrown against a barbed wire fence and it gets ripped to shreds in an instant. That’s how I feel. I think God is the wind. It’s all like a game to him. Him. God. And it’s all pretty much random. He takes out his pen and starts writing on our blank hearts. When it came to my turn, he wrote “sad.” I don’t like God very much. Apparently, he doesn’t like me very much either.”
― Benjamin Alire Saenz, Last Night I Sang to the Monster

“Small victories are bet­ter than none.”
― Neal Shusterman, Unwind