Gratiela

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
― Anne Frank

“You mean we won't get to run through burning buildings?" I could see he wanted to laugh, but instead he watched me intently. "What? Why are you staring at me?"
"I'm not staring. I'm observing."
I smiled through my tears. "And what do you observe?"
He brushed his lips against my ear. "A brave young woman who has always fought for what was right, even when it was unpopular. A woman who can't return to the land of her birth, but is wlcome to cross the seas and rebuild Alexandria in mine. And a woman who has suffered enough in Rome and deserves happiness for a change. Will you come to Mauretania and be my queen?"
He drew back to look at me, but I held him closer. "Yes."
"Just yes?"
I nodded and pressed my lips against his.”
― Michelle Moran, Cleopatra's Daughter

“Because paper has more patience than people. ”
― Anne Frank

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451