Contentment and happiness didn't exist in my life for more than a few moments at a time, and they were really only illusionary. There was always something hidden. Lying in wait to spring up and ruin everything.

Which goes to show you, you can make all the laws you want, but you cannot change people's ways. If you must change them, you have to understand that it will take a long time.

Miriam Makeba

The reward of one's duty is the power to fulfill another.

George Eliot

Evil is unspectacular and always human, and shares our bed and eats at our own table.

W. H. Auden

Life in Britain had seemed like one long antechamber to a room that had too many barriers to entry; here in the USA it seemed to be true that if you dared to give things 'your best shot' then the other much-used phrases like 'land of opportunity' would kick in as well.

Christopher Hitchens

When each one of us become an active and living book of lessons for those who see our examples, the boundaries of religious interpretation will give way to the new era of brotherhood and peace we're waiting for.

Chico Xavier

Becuse God loves us, but the devil takes an interest. pg 248

Jennifer Donnelly

True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

C.S. Lewis

Helen Keller became deaf, dumb, and blind shortly after birth. Despite her greatest misfortune, she has written her name indelibly in the pages of the history of the great. Her entire life has served as evidence that no one is ever defeated until defeat has been accepted as reality.

Napoleon Hill

I intend to go right on appointing highly qualified individuals of the highest personal integrity to the bench, individuals who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranchising the people through judicial activism.

Ronald Reagan

I think I meant that, given the circumstances of my childhood, I had the illusion that it's easier to be alone. To have your relationships be casual and also to pose as a solitary person, because it was more romantic. You know, I was raised on the idea of the ramblin' man and the loner.

Steve Martin

A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer better fantasies... And meanwhile, you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else.

Michael Crichton

I don't want to be in my car all day. I love getting up in the morning in Venice and walking my dogs down to the cafe to get my tea, and then perhaps going to a bookstore and sitting and reading, then walking to the beach.

Jessica Chastain