Americans play to win at all times. I wouldn't give a hoot and hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost nor ever lose a war.

The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.

LaoTzu

I complain a lot. That's one way of coping. But I'm in a profession where nobody tells you to quit. No board of other partners tells you it's time to get your gold watch, and no physical claim is made on you like an athlete or an actress. So I try to plug along on the theory that I can still do it. I still keep trying to produce prose, and some poetry, in the hope that I can find something to say about being alive, this country, but generally the human condition.

John Updike, (on being an old wr

This is the reason why mothers are more devoted to their children than fathers: it is that they suffer more in giving them birth and are more certain that they are their own.

Aristotle, (attributed)

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience

Albert Camus

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.

Channing Pollock

[J]ene Entsagungen, die die Menschen alberner Weise Tugenden nennen [...]

Oscar Wilde

What I took back, because of my exposure to the Jewish music of the 30s and the 40s in my upbringing with my father, was that kind of theatrical songwriting. It was always a part of my character. This desire to make people laugh.

Pete Townshend

Get the job done.

Don Shula

The Carter Center has the only existing international taskforce on disease eradication. Which means a total elimination of a disease on the face of the Earth. In the history of the world, there's only been one disease eradicated: smallpox. The second disease, I think, is gonna be guinea worm.

Jimmy Carter

A man is great by deeds, not by birth.

Chanakya

I was elected to the Diet in the same way as at every parliamentary election.

Fritz Sauckel

I'm either going to go completely mental, completely bankrupt, or have the best success of my life.

Katy Perry