When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought, you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

Every bit of me is devoted to love and art. And I aspire to try to be a teacher to my young fans who feel just like I felt when I was younger. I just felt like a freak. I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm trying to liberate them, I want to free them of their fears and make them feel that they can make their own space in the world.

Lady Gaga

Like what you do, if you don't like it, do something else.

Paul Harvey

There is nothing more fearful for the average person in our society than to stand before a group of people and speak.

Charles R. Swindoll

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period . . . .

Charles Dickens

Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've always known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward.

Wil Wheaton

Life is too short to waste The critic bite or cynic bark, Quarrel, or reprimand; 'Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had no idea that he was going to write that, but I've always believed that insecurity was what would keep you always in your innocence, no matter what the business did.

Sally Kirkland

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.

Alfred Adler

Beauty can come in strange forms.

James Dyson

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

Aristotle

I am fiscally prudent and socially progressive. I believe in protecting a woman's right to choose. I believe in marriage equality.

Andrew Cuomo

Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life.

Friedrich Nietzsche