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'Do you not think, Master Smith,' said Alf, 'that it is time for you to give this thing up?' '...And why should I do so? Isn't it mine? It came to me, and may a man not keep things that come to him so, at least as a remembrance?' 'Some things. Those that are free gifts and given for remembrance. But others are not so given. They cannot belong to a man forever, nor be treasured as heirlooms. They are lent. You have not thought, perhaps, that someone else may need this thing. But it is so.'

J.R.R. Tolkien, “Smith of Wootton Major” 

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'Hai, we name it. The Hai or soul was not ready for a journey and has no believing in the body as dead. It is trapped in the place of death and can do nothing but relive the sorrow, pain, and fear.' 'They're what we call ghosts,' Puck said sadly, remembering the heart-breaking faces of the fleeing creatures. 'Then you are people, too,' Hush said, as if he'd doubted up till then, 'for you have Hai.'

Annette Curtis Klause, Alien Secrets

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'It was not wrong,' the monster said. 'It was only a thought, one of a million. It was not an action.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'You do not write your life with words,' the monster said. 'You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'Stories are important,' the monster said. 'They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'A bully with charisma and top marks is still a bully.' She sighed, annoyed. 'He'll probably end up Prime Minister one day. God help us all.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'There is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'The justifications of men who kill should always be heard with skepticism.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'Stories are wild creatures,' the monster said. 'When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'You're as old as the land and you've never heard of sarcasm?' Connor asked. 'Oh, I have heard of it,' the monster said, putting its huge branch hands on its hips. 'But people usually know better than to speak it to me.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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'Stories are the wildest things of all,' the monster rumbled. 'Stories chase and bite and hunt.'

Patrick Ness, A Monster Calls

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Upon getting home I found it past four o'clock, and went immediately to bed. It is now ten A.M. I have been up since seven, penning these memoranda for the benefit of my family and of mankind. The former I shall behold no more. My wife is a shrew. The truth is, I am heartily sick of this life and of the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that every thing is going wrong. Besides, I am anxious to know who will be President in 2045. As soon, therefore, as I shave and swallow a cup of coffee, I shall just step over to Ponnonner's and get embalmed for a couple of hundred years.

Edgar Allan Poe, “Some Words with a Mummy”

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Death is a dignitary who, when he comes announced, is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce

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'When I was young and living in the Potala, there was an area that was very dark, and there were stories about ghosts there. So when I was passing through this area, I would feel something. This was completely a mental projection.' 'No,' the Archbishop said with a frightened face. 'There were ghosts there, man.'

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, with Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy

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As I sat next to the Dalai Lama I could feel in his posture and his body language the power of a leader. I remembered how strongly and tenderly he had held my hand the first time we met. His kindness did not in any way diminish his power, a valuable reminder that compassion is a feature of strength, not weakness, a point they would make throughout our conversations.

Douglas Abrams, The Book of Joy