Writers are often a source of inspiration for other writers. An inspirational quotation can launch the imagination of a writer, acting as a guiding genius. Here is a small compilation of the author’s favorite quotes from print, film, and television. Many of them are in some way a reflection of the author’s philosophy.

Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s lonely man.
– Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.
– Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

The idea had been growing in my brain for some time: true force. All the king’s men cannot put it back together again.
– Travis Bickle, Taxi Driver

Be very careful if you make a woman cry, because God counts her tears. The woman came out of a man’s rib. Not from his feet to be walked on. Not from his head to be superior. But from the side to be equal. Under the arm to be protected, and next to the heart to be loved.
– The Talmud

I don’t give a damn what men find attractive. It’s unfortunate what we find pleasing to the touch and pleasing to the eye is seldom the same.
– Fabienne, Pulp Fiction

I’ve been nothing but nice to you, why are you doing this to me?
– Léon, the Professional

Most people don’t take snapshots of the little things. The used Band-Aid, the guy at the gas station, the wasp on the Jell-O. But these are the things that make up the true picture of our lives. People don’t take pictures of these things.
– Sy Parrish, One Hour Photo

Family photos depict smiling faces…births, weddings, holidays, children’s birthday parties. People take pictures of the happy moments in their lives. Someone looking through our photo album would conclude that we had led a joyous, leisurely existence free of tragedy. No one ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget.
-Sy Parrish, One Hour Photo

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
– Jules Winnfield, Pulp Fiction

If I’m curt with you, it’s because time is a factor here. I think fast, I talk fast, and I need you guys to act fast if you want to get out of this. So, pretty please, with sugar on top, clean the fucking car.
– The Wolf, Pulp Fiction

Kersey: Do you believe in Jesus?
Punk: Yes, I do.
Kersey: You’re gonna meet him.
(Kersey shoots Punk 3 times)
– Paul Kersey, Death Wish 2

Alone…I’d be better off. Relationships are too confusing.
– Dexter Morgan, Dexter

To know love, be like a running brook, which deaf, yet sings its melody for others to hear. Feel the pain of too much tenderness. Awake at dawn with a winged heart and gives thanks for yet another day of loving. Empty yourself and yet be filled. An old man tells you this is how to know love.
– Master Po, Kung Fu

There’s a certain way a man stares at a woman he loves. The man looks like a boy on his birthday. And he treats the woman as if she were a gift that he’s wanted so long to open and now he can’t wait to see what the treasure is inside.
– Patty, 100 Girls

Friendship is a real gift. And it is given with no expectations, and no gratitude is necessary, not between real friends.
– George Feeney, Boy Meets World

It is often said that to be effective, one must act with forthrightness and great force. But what is to be gained from such a course, if the end one is embarked upon is a righteous action? It flows the way of the Tao. Forces are in motion to which we cannot add, from which we cannot subtract. If our path is right, there is only one course to follow. The correct action is to do nothing, and all will be done.
– Master Kan, Kung Fu

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
– Josesph Baretti

It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
– P. G. Wodehouse

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
– Albert Einstein

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.
– Harry Emerson Fosdick

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
– Flannery O’Connor

I’ve purged myself of bitterness and anger and remained open to love.
Tatum O’Neal

A great lover is someone who can satisfy one woman her entire lifetime and be satisfied with one woman his entire lifetime. It is not someone who goes from woman to woman; any dog can do that.
– Ricardo Montalban

We do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual…If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.
– George Eliot

I have loved to the point of madness; that which is called madness, that which to me, is the only sensible way to love.
– Françoise Sagan

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.
– Frank O’ Hara

Nothing one man can say can help another.  Each must make his own way.
– Jerome David Salinger

Hallie, you know, you look mighty pretty when you get mad.
– John Wayne as Tom Doniphon in Liberty Valance

Love means in very little unless it is put into practice.
– Kung Fu

Like anything worth writing, it came inexplicably and without method.
– Karen Eiffel, Stranger Than Fiction

Any kind of selling activity doesn’t really bring people together. I think that in that way the film is about alienation. The salesman goes on his own lonely way from one big loop to the other, from one household to the other.
– Albert Maysles, Salesman (1969)