"It was only three years ago, but I looked so young, with that carefree smile."
-The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

"To me, the grounds for hope are simply that we don't know what will happen next, and that the unlikely and the unimaginable transpire quite regularly."
-Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit

"For just one second, look at your life and see how perfect it is.  Stop looking for the next secret door that is going to lead you to your real life.  Stop waiting.  This is it:  there's nothing else.  It's here, and you'd better decide to enjoy it or you're going to be miserable wherever you go, for the rest of your life, forever."
-The Magicians by Lev Grossman

"If our past selves got a glimpse of us now, what would they make of us?"
-We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

"The thought didn't disturb her.  She had used this room up, she felt.  She had used this life up." 
- Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

"And here I am, still alive, still in the world.  It's my intention to carry on being alive in the world, well, until I die.  At Easter I'll go to Glasgow and see what science fiction fandom is like.  Next June I'll take my exams and pass them, and have qualifications.  Then I'll do A level, as it best works out.  I'll go to university.  I'll live, and read, and have friends, a karass, people to talk to.  I'll grow and change and be myself.  I'll belong to libraries wherever I go.  Maybe eventually I'll belong to libraries on other planets.  I'll speak to varies as I see them and do magic as it comes my way and prevents harm - I'm not going to forget anything.  But I won't use it to cheat or to make my life unreal or go against the pattern.  Things will happen that I can't imagine.  I'll change and grow into a future that will be unimaginably different from the past.  I'll be alive.  I'll be me.  I'll be reading my book.  I'll never drown my books or break my staff.  I'll learn while I live.  Eventually I'll come to death, and die, and I'll go on through death to new life, or even, or whatever unknowable thing is supposed to happen to people when they did.  I'll die and rot and return my cells to life, in the pattern, whatever planet I happen to be on at the time.

That's what life is, and how I intend to live it."
-Among Others by Jo Walton

"Tolkien understood about the things that happen after the end.  Because this is after the end, this is all the Scouring of the Shire, this is figuring out how to live in the time that wasn't supposed to happen after the glorious last stand."
-Among Others by Jo Walton

"The door opens silently when I push - it hasn't rusted the way I have."
-If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio