“Standing in line is a form of oppression.”

You can love someone so much but you can never love people as much as you can miss them.

You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with.

It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

Everything that comes together falls apart.

You like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot.

I ran like a cheetah – well, like a cheetah that smoked too much.

You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.

Whatever you’re worried about, you’re bigger than the worries.

Sometimes you lose a battle. But mischief always wins the war.

What’s the meaning of life? Other people.

Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.

Books so special and rare and yours that advertising your affection feels like a betrayal.

We all use the future to escape the present.

The goal of the tribute system was to foster deference, not to extract economic benefit or to dominate foreign societies militarily.

Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an angry black woman. I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it angry or black or woman ?

The antisemites who called themselves patriots introduced that new species of national feeling which consists primarily in a complete whitewash of one’s own people and a sweeping condemnation of all others.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

Dominance, even the threat of it, is a form of dehumanization. It’s the ugliest kind of power.

The Monster Ball is by nature a protest: A youth church experience to speak out and celebrate against all forms of discrimination + prejudice.

Better to die on one’s feet than to live on one’s knees.

For a female artist, it takes a lot more to be taken seriously if you’re not sat down at a piano or with a guitar, you know?