"Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days."
-William Shakespeare,
Romeo and Juliet 
"'You weren't there, you didn't
see,' he said. 'There must be something in books, things we can't imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don't stay for nothing.'"
-Ray Bradbury,
Fahrenheit 451
"For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."-Elie Wiesel
"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than other animals."
George Orwell, Animal Farm
"I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality."
Yann Martel, Life of Pi
"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
-William Faulkner, Nobel Prize acceptance speech