I have been blessed in many ways, and one of those is to have been born in Africa, for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy reading about it, talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land, living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience.

I remember once giving my dad some drawings and writings and said, 'If you could just give these to the publisher, that would be great.' And I was about five!

Sally Hawkins

I would love to work more - I really would - but there is not a lot of stuff around and the stuff that is around is not very complicated; it tends to lie a little flat.

Holly Hunter

Commerce is one of the daughters of Fortune, inconsistent and deceitful as her mother. she chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her home when in appearance she seems firmly settled.

Ben Johnston

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

Mark Twain

Because', she said, 'your problems are not real problems. You're dating two beautiful girls at once. Think about it. That's like...having rock-star problems.''Having rock-star problems may be the closest I ever get to being an actual rock star.

Cassandra Clare

No facts are to me sacred none are profane I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you can measure success in this business based on happiness alone I feel like I've hit the lottery.

Justin Long

And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers. There are heroes in the seaweed, There are children in the morning, They are leaning out for love, And they will lean that way forever, While Suzanne holds the mirror.

Leonard Cohen

Put two or three men in positions of conflicting authority. This will force them to work at loggerheads, allowing you to be the ultimate arbiter.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I think kids slowly begin to realize that what they're learning relates to other things they know. Then learning starts to get more and more exciting.

Norton Juster

Don't let us make imaginary evils, when you know we have so many real ones to encounter.

Oliver Goldsmith

And when his hours are numbered, and the world Is all his own, retiring, as he were not, Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work, The frolic architecture of the snow.

Ralph Waldo Emerson