My advice to people today is as follows: if you take the game of life seriously, if you take your nervous system seriously, if you take your sense organs seriously, if you take the energy process seriously, you must turn on, tune in, and drop out.

And I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.

Kurt Vonnegut

Writing poetry makes you intensely conscious of how words sound, both aloud and inside the head of the reader. You learn the weight of words and how they sound to the ear.

Helen Dunmore

Sports is the toy department of human life.

Howard Cosell

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate, Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving

William Shakespeare

The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Oscar Wilde

I believe marriage should be between one man and one woman. That's my view, and that'll be the view of our state because I wouldn't sign a bill that - like the one that was in New York.

Chris Christie

This is my 20th year in the sport. I've known swimming and that's it. I don't want to swim past age 30 if I continue after this Olympics, and come back in 2016, I'll be 31. I'm looking forward to being able to see the other side of the fence.

Michael Phelps

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Emmet Fox

Don't argue for other people's weaknesses. Don't argue for your own. When you make a mistake, admit it, correct it, and learn from it -- immediately.

Stephen Covey

Foul water will quench fire.

English Proverb

Thought is the sculptor who can create the person you want to be.

Henry David Thoreau

I'm learning English at the moment. I can say 'Big Ben', 'Hello Rodney', 'Tower Bridge' and 'Loo'.

Cher