99% of natural poets discovered their talents through love letters.

— Michael Bassey Johnson

A certain bygone philosophy-which certainly must have quite forgotten all about the real child-used to speak of the child's nature as a tabula rasa, or 'blank page,' upon which experience and training might write what they pleased. As a matter of fact, the child's nature at birth, like that of a calf or a chick, is pretty well scribbled over by the experience of its ancestors. It is far from being blank, for as soon as the little organism comes into the world, it begins to do certain things and do them with much zeal and determination, as every one knows who knows real children.

— Edward O. Sisson

Although I am far too frequently convinced otherwise, with God a dead-end is only the death of an end.

— Craig D. Lounsbrough

A moment’s beginning ends in a moment

— Munia Khan

A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.

— Amy Tan

... and it was quite a sad thing, the way I watched you sleep like nothing could go wrong, and I did not want to harm it, I did not want to blur it, but how could I not when everything I’ve ever known has slowly gone away and I know by now that that’s the way you let the new day in with new roads and views and chances to grow but it was quite a sad thing because I don’t want this to ever become ’then’ or ’was’ and it was quite an unfamiliar thing. The way I took off my shoes again, put down my bag and quietly went back to bed, slowly between the sheets of moments I don’t want to leave and it was quite a beautiful thing the way you had no idea but still must have known because you did not even open your eyes, but turned around and took my hand, and you were still asleep, breathing in and out like nothing could go wrong, but still held my hand like you were glad I didn’t leave. ’Thank you for staying’and it was quite a wonderful thing, the way I smiled and so did you, sound asleep, and that’s all I need to know for now. That’s all I want to know for now.

— Charlotte Eriksson

And I went into the new year loving myself a little less, but a little more where it actually mattered.

— Dominic Riccitello

And thus it happens that the reader, the closer he comes to the novel's end, the more he wishes he were back in the summer with which it begins, and finally, instead of following the hero onto the cliffs of suicide, joyfully turns back to that summer, content to stay there forever.

— Franz Kafka

And what do you believe?” A slow smile spread over his face. “I believe in you. You are my new beginning.

— Robin Hobb

And yet, what seems to be the most intimidating now is not an end in itself, but only a means to a greater end. It must be achieved not because it will mark the end of your struggles, but the beginning of your journey towards the real destination. Remember, this end is but a means.

— Aishwarya Bhuta