Melissa Nelson

“And it strikes me that this is how writing anything is, really. A collaboration between you who give the words and they who take them and find meaning in them, or put music behind them, or turn them aside because they were not what was needed.”
― Ally Condie, Reached

“But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
― George Eliot, Middlemarch

“Since he knew things at the beginning, maybe at the end he knew things too. That we had gone as far as chance would take us. That nothing is more sacred than youth or more hopeful than turning yourself over to someone and saying ~ I have this time, it is not a long time, but it is my best time and my best gift, and I give it to you. When I revisit my youth, I re-visit you.”
― Hilary Thayer Hamann, Anthropology of an American Girl

“So here’s the deal and this is what you get: The penthouse suite with world-commanding views, The banker’s bonus and the private jet, Control and ownership of all the news, An ‘in’ to that exclusive one per cent, Who know the score, who really run the show, With interest on every penny lent  And sweeteners for cronies in the know. A straight arrangement between me and you, No hell below or heaven high above, You just admit it, and give me my due, And wake up from this foolish dream of love … But Jesus laughed, ‘You are not what you seem. Love is the waking life, you are the dream.”
― Malcolm Guite, The Word in the Wilderness