The Perfect Bookish Quotes for Gift Tags or Holiday Cards

Quotes for lovers, friends, parents, kids, siblings, and anyone!

It can be a struggle coming up with pithy thoughts and meaningful sentiments when writing holiday cards or gift tags. If you're someone who agonizes over trying to come up with the perfect messages, never fear! We've curated an extensive collection of wise, witty, and "aww"-inspiring literary quotes for all the most important people in your life, plus a handful of all-purpose passages for a variety of occasions and individuals.

For Your Lover

"You are my heart, my life, my one and only thought."
— Arthur Conan Doyle, The White Company

"We are asleep until we fall in love!"
— Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

"I've never had a moment's doubt. I love you. I believe in you completely. You are my dearest one. My reason for life."
— Ian McEwan, Atonement

"You are sunlight through a window, which I stand in, warmed. My darling."
— Jessie Burton, The Miniaturist

"I would love to say that you make me weak in the knees but to be quite upfront and completely truthful you make my body forget it has knees at all."
— Tyler Knott Gregson, Chasers of the Light

"You might not have been my first love, but you were the love that made all the other loves irrelevant"
— Rupi Kaur, milk and honey

"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

"Each time you happen to me all over again."
— Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

For Your Bestie

"Anybody can look at you. It's quite rare to find someone who sees the same world you see."
— John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

"She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order."
— Toni Morrison, Beloved

"There is nothing sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name."
— Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit."
— Aristotle

"No friendship is an accident."
— O. Henry, Heart of the West

"We didn't talk about anything heavy or light. We were just there together. And that was enough."
— Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."
— Helen Keller

"I knew when I met you an adventure was going to happen."
— A. A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

For Your Kids

"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?"
— Mary Oliver, House of Light

"You are your best thing."
— Toni Morrison, Beloved

"It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you."
— Roald Dahl, The Witches

"Your children make it impossible to regret your past. They're its finest fruits. Sometimes the only ones."
— Anna Quindlen, Black and Blue

"I'm so proud of you that it makes me proud of me. I hope you know that."
— David Levithan and John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

"The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

"'And now,' cried Max, 'let the wild rumpus start!'"
— Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are

"All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust."
— J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan

For Your Parents

"It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful."
— Roald Dahl, Matilda

"A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin."
— Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

"Sometimes I think my papa is an accordion. When he looks at me and smiles and breathes, I hear the notes."
— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

"She was my mother and she would not leave me. This I had simply accepted and expected. I had no more thanked her for it than I did the sun for shining on me."
— Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

"Perhaps it takes courage to raise children."
— John Steinbeck, East of Eden

"Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot."
— Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's

"Even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you had your mother at your back, you'd be okay. Some deep-rooted part of you would know you were loved. That you deserved to be loved."
— Jojo Moyes, One Plus One

"That's what a father does. Eases the burdens of those he loves. Saves the ones he loves from painful last images that might endure for a lifetime."
— George Saunders, Tenth of December

For Your Siblings

"No matter where we are, we'll always share the same sky. We can always find each other in the same constellation."
— Roshani Chokshi, The Star-Touched Queen

"You may be as different as the sun and the moon, but the same blood flows through both your hearts. You need her, and she needs you . . . "
— George R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

"Not a word passes between us, not because we have nothing to say, but because we don't have to say anything."
— Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

"The best kind of laughter is laughter born of a shared memory."
— Mindy Kaling, Why Not Me?

"Half the time when brothers wrestle, it's just an excuse to hug each other."
— James Patterson

"They were all growing up and into each other like trees striving together for the sun."
— Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King

"We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."
— Erma Bombeck

All-Purpose

"There is some good in this world, and it's worth fighting for."
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

"Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new."
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."
— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

"So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible."
— Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

"I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe."
— Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch

"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship."
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."
— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

"I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be."
— Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

Why rack your brain for the perfect wording when it's already out there? Include some of these quotes in your handwritten notes and gift tags and we guarantee it will warm the hearts of your recipients. You're welcome!

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Read more by Ashly Moore Sheldon