where else would I meet you?
Thought I was smart enough not to say out loud to someone who suggested I go to hell:
I must already be there; where else would I meet you?”
stealing from our fellow beings
Any time we accumulate more than we actually need, we are actually stealing from our fellow beings,” explains Feuerstein.
This reminds me of much of the criticism I’ve received lately….
Things I said…
I don’t need clones. You have to feed them. What I need is a doppelganger.
You can’t straddle the fence without bruising your genitalia.
On George W. Bush: I don’t want a president who’s done more drugs than me.
On President G. W. Bush: At the very least, I can say I’m smarter than the President of the United States.
My favorite Guin Turner movie? Taxicab Confessions. I like her acting best when she’s drunk and unaware of the camera.
The Wisdom Of Supermodels
Note: Most of these quotes have been debunked on Snopes.com as untrue.
ON COURAGE:
"They were doing a full back shot of me in a swimsuit and I thought, ‘Oh my God, I have to be so brave. See, every woman hates herself from behind.’"
-Cindy Crawford
ON POVERTY:
"Everyone should have enough money to get plastic surgery."
-Beverly Johnson
ON FATE:
"I wish my butt did not go sideways but I guess I have to face that."
-Christie Brinkley
ON SELF-ESTEEM:
"I loved making ‘Rising Sun.’ I got into the psychology of why she liked to get strangled and tied up in plastic bags. It has to do with low self-worth."
-Tatjana Patitz
One-Liners From Your Favorite Comics
A lady came up to me on the street and pointed at my suede jacket. ‘You know a cow was murdered for that jacket?’ she sneered. I replied in a psychotic tone, ‘I didn’t know there were any witnesses. Now I’ll have to kill you too. – Jake Johansen
A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: Duh. –Conan O’Brien
A woman broke up with me and sent me pictures of her and her newboyfriend in bed together. Solution?? I sent them to her dad. –Christopher Case
Did you ever walk in a room and forget why you walked in? I think that’s how dogs spend their lives. –Sue Murphy
I don’t do drugs anymore ’cause I find I get the same effect just by standing up really fast. – Johnathan Katz
I had a linguistics professor who said that it’s man’s ability to use language that makes him the dominant species on the planet. That may be. But I think there’s one other thing that separates us from animals. We aren’t afraid of vacuum cleaners. – Jeff Stilson
I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. – Elayne Boosler
I just broke up with someone and the last thing she said to me was, ‘You’ll never find anyone like me again!’ I’m thinking, ‘I should hope not? If I don’t want you, why would I want someone like you?’ –Larry Miller
I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by. – Douglas Adams
I think that’s how Chicago got started. A bunch of people in New York said, ‘Gee, I’m enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn’t cold enough. Let’s go west.’ –Richard Jeni
I voted for the Democrats because I didn’t like the way the Republicans were running the country. Which is turning out to be like shooting yourself in the head to stop your headache. – Jack Mayberry
I was a vegetarian until I started leaning towards sunlight. – Rita Rudner
I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman where the Self Help section was. She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose. –Dennis Miller
I’ve been doing the Fonda workout: The Peter Fonda workout. That’s where I wake up, take a hit of acid, smoke a joint, and go to my sister’s house and ask her for money. –Kevin Meaney
If you ever see me getting beaten by the police, put down the video camera and come help me! – Bobcat Goldthwait
If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either. – Dick Cavett
In elementary school, in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic? Do tall people burn slower? – Warren Hutcherson
Just when you think that you have been gypped, the Bearded Lady comes and does a double back-flip. – John Hiatt
My mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, ‘Mom, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim.’ –Paula Poundstone
Now they show you how detergents take out blood stains, a pretty violent image there. I think if you’ve got a T-shirt with a bloodstain all over it, maybe laundry isn’t your biggest problem. Maybe you should get rid of the body before you do the wash. – Jerry Seinfeld
Relationships are hard. It’s like a full-time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girl friend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks notice. There should be severance pay, and before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp. – Bob Ettinger
Santa is very jolly because he knows where all the bad girls live. –Dennis Miller
Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography. – Paul Rodriguez
The Swiss have an interesting army. Five hundred years without a war. Pretty impressive. Also pretty lucky for them. Ever see that little Swiss Army knife they have to fight with? Not much of a weapon there. Corkscrews. Bottle openers. ‘Come on, buddy, let’s go. You get past me, the guy in back of me, he’s got a spoon. Back off. I’ve got the toe clippers right here.’ –Jerry Seinfeld
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they are okay, then it’s you. – Rita Mae Brown
What do people mean when they say the computer went down on them? –Marilyn Pittman
When you look at Prince Charles, don’t you think that someone in the Royal family knew someone in the Royal family? – Robin Williams
Where lipstick is concerned, the important thing is not color, but to accept God’s final word on where your lips end. – Jerry Seinfeld
Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I’m halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God….I could be eating a slow learner .. – Lynda Montgomery
Writing is nature’s way of letting you know how sloppy your thinking is. – Bob Mugele
Funny Quotes
No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats–approximately one billion Chinese couldn’t care less.
— Lazlo’s Chinese Relativity Axiom
Based on what you know about him in history books, what do you think Abraham Lincoln would be doing if he were alive today? 1. Writing his memoirs of the Civil War. 2. Advising the President. 3. Desperately clawing at the inside of his coffin.
— David Letterman
Of all the radio stations in Chicago…we’re one of them.
— Slogan of 105.9, the classic rock radio station in Chicago
I think animal testing is a terrible idea; they get all nervous and give the wrong answers.
— A Bit of Fry and Laurie
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
— Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See
A slipping gear could let your M203 grenade launcher fire when you least expect it. That would make you quite unpopular in what’s left of your unit.
— In the August 1993 issue, page 9, of PS magazine, the Army’s magazine of preventive maintenance 44.
It’s like being ‘Xena, Warrior Princess.’
— Madeleine Albright, giving her stock response when asked what it’s like to be a female secretary of state
I think that the team that wins game five will win the series. Unless we lose game five.
— Charles Barkley
My initial response was to sue her for defamation of character, but then I realized that I had no character.
— Charles Barkley, on hearing Tonya Harding proclaim herself “the Charles Barkley of figure skating”
Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the history of the world.
— Dave Barry
If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base.
— Dave Barry
You mean we’re not gonna score? We came all this way and we’re not gonna score? It’s not fair; we never score. I’ll bet this old dude scored, like, a million times. But we never score.
— Beavis, from Beavis and Butthead Do America
When you come to a fork in the road, take it.
— Yogi Berra
Boundary, n. In political geography, an imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of another.
— Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Life may have no meaning. Or even worse, it may have a meaning of which I disapprove.
— Ashleigh Brilliant
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
— Ashleigh Brilliant
I am not a vegetarian because I love animals; I am a vegetarian because I hate plants.
— A. Whitney Brown
“I know you feel betrayed.”
“Well, yes, that is one of the unpleasant side effects of betrayal.”
— from Buffy the Vampire Slayer
from Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
Oz: Oh look! Monkey. And he has a little hat… and little pants.
Willow: Yeah, I see.
Oz: The monkey’s the only cookie animal that gets to wears clothes. You know that?
Oz: You have the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen.
Oz: So I’m wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like is the hippo going, “Hey, man. Where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity.” And you know the monkey’s just, [french accent] “I mock you with my monkey pants!” And then there’s a big coup in the zoo.
Willow: The monkey is French?
Oz: All monkeys are French. You didn’t know that?
Willow: No.
L’hippo a pique’ ses pantalons. (Translation: The hippo stole his pants.)
Delta: It always helps if you wear a tiara.
Rosie: While shellacing?
Delta: While doing anything.
— Delta Burke, On the Rosie O’Donnell Show
[upon discovering their TV has been stolen} This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before.
— Butthead, from Beavis and Butthead Do America
Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don’t realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
Hobbes: Isn’t your pants’ zipper supposed to be in the front?
May the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house.
— George Carlin
I’ve always enjoyed being told what to think. Of course I do the opposite of whatever is requested of me, but I find the attempted intrusion flirtatious.
— Lisa Carver
I like sweet little soft bunnies for girls, kind of dumb, giggly. Maybe a little drunk. Girls who smell good and do what I say.
— Lisa Carver
Caught masturbating on my wedding day — how low class!
— Lisa Carver
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
— Dick Cavett, mocking the TV-violence debate
When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, “Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don’t believe?”
— Quentin Crisp
The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.
— Salvador Dali
Oh, well, that’s the Lord’s Work. Name-calling.
— Ellen Degeneres, On being told that Jerry Falwell referred to her as Ellen Degenerate
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, “I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease”. Disraeli replied, “That all depends, sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.”
I promise the next time we get attacked by monkeys on an escalator, I will save you.
— Ben from Felicity
With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress.
— Ransom K. Ferm
Oh my God, I’m my father! I’ve been trying so hard not to be my mother that I didn’t see this coming.
— Rachel from Friends
There’s only one thing better than getting what you want, and that’s getting what you want and pissing someone else off at the same time.
— Bender on Futurama
The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers.
— Bill Gates from The Road Ahead, p. 265.
What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
— Richard Harkness, The New York Times, 1960
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
— William James
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again.
— F. P. Jones
Man’s greatest joy is to slay his enemy, plunder his riches, ride his steeds, see the tears of his loved ones and embrace his women.
— Genghis Khan
Time’s fun when you’re having flies.
— Kermit the Frog
The most important thing in the programming language is the name. A language will not succeed without a good name. I have recently invented a very good name and now I am looking for a suitable language.
— D. E. Knuth, 1967
I am sick unto death of obscure English towns that exist seemingly for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers–and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives at fancy dress balls.
— Editor of the Limerick Times (Limerick, Ireland)
The O.J. Simpson (Civil Trial) Jury has the chance to send a clear message to the world, which is, ‘If you kill someone in L.A., you’re looking at a very stiff fine.’
— Bill Mauher
The hypothalamus is one of the most important parts of the brain, involved in many kinds of motivation, among other functions. The hypothalamus controls the “Four F’s”: 1. fighting; 2. fleeing; 3.feeding; and 4. mating.
— Psychology professor in neuropsychology intro course
I think that all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not! But I’m sick and tired of being told that I am!
— Monty Python
You coveteth my ice cream bar, but you cannot have it. I have had this ice cream bar since I was a child.
— Ren, from Ren and Stimpy
Son, you don’t have bad luck. Bad things happen to you because you’re a dumbass.
— That 70’s Show
I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they’ve always worked for me.
— Hunter S. Thompson
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
— Mark Twain
When choosing between two evils, I always take the one I haven’t tried before.
— Mae West
If triangles had a God, He’d have three sides.
— Old Yiddish proverb
G: If we do happen to step on a mine, Sir, what do we do?
EB: Normal procedure, Lieutenant, is to jump 200 feet in the air and scatter oneself over a wide area.
— Somewhere in No Man’s Land, BA4
Yes, They Really Said That…
Unbelievable quotes of the rich and famous. (Don’t overlook the Dan Quayle, who gets a page of his very own: Quayle-isms
Question: If you could live forever, would you and why? Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever." — Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest
Quayle Quotes
Recently, Dan Quayle announced his intentions to run for President of the U.S. in 2000. Since many younger voters may not have been watching the news when these were said the first time, we provide you with this list of famous Quayle quotes.
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit… Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
— Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century."
— Vice President Dan Quayle, 9/15/88
"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change."
— 5/22/89
"One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice president, and that one word is ‘to be prepared’."
— 12/6/89
"May our nation continue to be the beakon of hope to the world."
— The Quayles’ 1989 Christmas card.
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
— 11/30/88
"We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world."
— 9/21/88
"I stand by all the misstatements that I’ve made."
— Vice President Dan Quayle to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/89
"Public speaking is very easy."
— to reporters in 10/88
"Illegitimacy is something we should talk about in terms of not having it."
— 5/20/92 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)
"We are ready for any unforeseen event that may or may not occur."
— 9/22/90
"For NASA, space is still a high priority."
— 9/5/90
"Quite frankly, teachers are the only profession that teach our children."
— 9/18/90
"Republicans understand the importance of bondage between
a mother and child. "
— on Republican family values
"What a waste it is to lose one’s mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
— at a fundraising event for the United Negro College Fund. He was attempting to quote the line "a mind is a terrible thing to waste"
"When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame."
— on the complex social issues behind the Los Angeles Riots
"I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the
only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people"
"The loss of life will be irreplaceable."
— on the San Francisco earthquake
"We are ready for an unforeseen event that may or may
not occur."
"It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago."
"It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment.
It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
"Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts."
"The future will be better tomorrow."
"People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history."
"We have a firm commitment to NATO, we are a *part* of NATO. We have a firm commitment to Europe. We are a *part* of Europe."
"I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican."
"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
"[It’s] time for the human race to enter the solar system."
"I support efforts to limit the terms of members of
Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate."
"If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure."
"I have made good judgments in the Past. I have made good judgments in the future."
"The American people would not want to know of any misquotes that Dan Quayle may or may not make."
"We’re all capable of mistakes, but I do not care to enlighten you on the mistakes we may or may not have made."
Inspirational Quotes
g’nothi s’auton – Know thy self
— inscription on the wall of the temple at Delphi
You don’t drown by falling in water. You drown by staying there.
— Robert Allen
If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.
— M. H. Anderson
Live, live, live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.
— Auntie Mame
Fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae. – Each man the architect of his own fate.
— Appius Caecus, Quoted by Sallust, De Civitate, I. 2
Honey, I can upstage you with out even being on the stage.
— Tallulah Bankhead
Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.
— Mildred Berthel
No man is a failure until he gives up.
— Bishop of London
Corky (Gina Gershon) to Violet (Jennifer Tilly):
Don’t apologize. I can’t stand it when women apologize for wanting sex.
— from the movie Bound
Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.
— James Dean
When nothing is sure, everything is possible.
— Margret Drabble
We are not Human Beings having a spiritual experience. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience.
— Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
Show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I will show you a failure.
— Thomas Edison
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
— Thomas Edison
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear what you’re saying.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Do the thing you’re afraid to do and the death of fear is certain.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
First say to yourself what you would be, then do what you have to do.
— Epictetus
If you build it, they will come.
— From the movie, Field of Dreams
The things you own, end up owning you. It’s only after you’ve lost everything that you’re free to do anything. Self-improvement is masturbation. Self-destruction might be the answer. You are not your Khakis.
— Fight Club
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
— Galileo
If you think the world is all wrong, remember that it contains people like you.
— Gandhi
They cannot take away our self-respect if we do not give it to them.
— Gandhi
To act is easy; to think is hard.
— Goethe
What does not kill me makes me stronger.
— Goethe
Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.
— Goethe
There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.
— Goethe
I respect the man who knows distinctly what he wishes. The greater part of all mischief in the world arises from the fact that men do not sufficiently understand their own aims. They have undertaken to build a tower, and spend no more labor on the foundation than would be necessary to erect a hut.
— Goethe
Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
— Goethe
Only learn to seize good fortune, for good fortune is always here.
— Goethe
Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
— Goethe
When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.
— Goethe
Hey, world, I’m alive — and these pants are washable!
— Harry, 3rd Rock from the Sun
If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn’t be a human being. You’d be a game show host.
— from the movie “Heathers”
Always listen to the experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.
— Robert Heinlein
Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own.
— Henrichs
He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself.
— George Herbert
Fall seven times, stand up eight .
— Japanese proverb
The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the unlived life is not worth examining.
— Guy Kawasaki
If you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem.
— John F. Kennedy
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
— John F. Kennedy
Perhaps the worst sin in life is knowing right and not doing it.
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
I always prefer to believe the best of everybody . . . it saves so much trouble.
— Rudyard Kipling
I can imagine that an ugly woman who looks in the mirror is convinced that it is her mirror image and not she that is ugly.Thus society sees the mirror image of it’s meanness, and is stupid enough to believe that I am the mean fellow.
— Karl Kraus
Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, While loving someone deeply gives you courage
— Lao Tzu
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
— Stephen Leacock
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.
— Abraham Lincoln
The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather in a lack of will.
— Vince Lombardi (not that I’m fond of the guy, but this is good.)
There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity.
— Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Freefall with the truth; hope we both survive. Deal?
— Ally McBeal
Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
— Henry Miller
Democracy is not a spectator sport.
— Michael Moore
To my little sister on Mother’s Day, in reference to my sexual orientation:
You’re not going to turn out like Steph are you?
[It’s always a delight to hear what people really think of you.]
— My Mother
Whosoever would fight monsters must take care that in the process he does not become one. For when you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks also into you.
— Neitzche
Passion is not Arrogance. You ever hear that story about Babe Ruth pointing towards the fence before he belted a home run exactly where he said it would? No one knows if it’s true or not; it’s like a myth. But man, you sure want to believe it happened. You want to believe that someone could have that much faith in themselves, in what they do, in what they’re capable of, that they’d guarantee they’re going to do something and then go ahead and do it.
— A Nike Ad
I will choose what enters me, what becomes flesh of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory. Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind. This is my body. If I give it to you I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand.
— Marge Piercy
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
— Plutarch
A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
— Alexander Pope
America’s abundance was not created by public sacrifices to ‘the common good,’ but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes.
— Ayn Rand
Late to Bed, Early to Rise; Work like Hell, and You’ll be Wise.
— Hyman G. Rickover, Father of the U.S. Nuclear Navy
If a man does only what is required of him, he is a slave. The moment he does more than is required, he becomes a free man.
— A.W. Robertson
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you cannot do.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
— Theodore Roosevelt
The thing that women have to learn is that nobody gives you power. You just take it.
— Roseanne
It is not the civil-social norm for which men yearn, but the outrageous, the outsized, the out-of-bounds, for that by which our wild potency may be unleashed. We crave openly to become our secret selves.
— Salman Rushdie, From The Moor’s Last Sigh
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly: what is essential is invisible to the eye.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I’m an idealist. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.
— Carl Sandburg
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
— Carl Sandburg
Growth does not cease being painful at any age.
— May Sarton, from Journal of Solitude
My own belief is that one regards oneself, if one is a serious writer, as an instrument for experiencing. Life–all of it–flows through this instrument and is distilled through it into works of art. How one lives as a private person is intimately bound into the work. And at some point, I believe one has to stop holding back for fear of alienating some imaginary reader or real relative or friend, and come out with personal truth. If we are to understand the human condition, and if we are to accept ourselves in all the complexity, self-doubt, extravagance of feeling, guilt, joy, the slow freeing of the self to its full capacity for action and creation, both as human being and artist, we have to know all we can about one another, and we have to be willing to go naked.
— May Sarton, from Journal of Solitude
What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?
— Dr. Robert Schuller
This above All,–to thine ownself be true, And it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
— Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act I, Scene III
This thing of darkness I Acknowledge mine.
— Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
— Henry David Thoreau
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.
— Mark Twain
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people can always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
— Mark Twain
Lightning flashes across the sky, east to west, do or die. Like a thief in the night, see the world by candlelight. from Seconds
— U2
Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.
— Henry Van Dyke
Fortune favours the bold.
— Virgil, Aeneid
Progress always involves risk. You can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.
— Frederick B. Wilcox
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
— Oscar Wilde
Success is a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
— Earl Wilson
I not only use all the brains I have, but all I can borrow.
— Woodrow Wilson
On the Subject of Love
I woke up with your name on my lips. I woke up with your lips on my imagination.
— BZ with Joanne – from the song Jackie
Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.
— Diane Ackerman