The power and voice of a writer are like no other. I have always been obsessed with writing and even the idea of writing and how someone is able to make words spill onto a page, as if it was as easy and necessary as breathing. These authors are able to connect to thousands of people with their beautiful language and words that they have created that so many others are able to relate to. In honor of amazing writers everywhere, here are 27 quotes from literary pieces of outstanding authors.

1.“At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.” – Willa Cather, “My Antonia”

2.“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.” —J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”

3.“Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” —Jonathan Safran Foer, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close”

4. “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.” – Leo Tolstoy, “Anna Karenina”

5. “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.” – Stephen Chbosky, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower”

6. “Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” —Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

7. “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.” —Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank

8. “The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.”—Toni Morrison, Beloved

9. “How wild it was, to let it be.” —Cheryl Strayed, Wild

10. “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” —T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

11. “She was becoming herself and daily casting aside that fictitious self which we assume like a garment with which to appear before the world.” —Kate Chopin, “The Awakening”

12. “There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.” —Bram Stroker, Dracula

13. “It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.” —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

14. “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” —Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

15. ”Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost” —Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

16. “Whatever our souls are made of, yours and mine are the same.” – Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights

17. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view…Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” —Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

18. “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” -Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

19. “Forgiving isn’t something you do for someone else. It’s something you do for yourself. It’s saying, ‘You’re not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.’ It’s saying, ‘You don’t get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future.’”—Jodi Picoult, The Storyteller

20. “All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

21. “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.” – Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

22. “‘Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.’” —E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

23. “Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand.” —Stephen King, IT

24. “To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.” —Arundhati Roy, The Cost of Living

25. “Our doubts are traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.” – William Shakespeare Measure for Measure

26. “If we wait until we’re ready we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.” —Daniel Handler, The Ersatz Elevator

27. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” —Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower