To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn't everything.

Clutter is the disease of American writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon.

William Zinsser

The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.

Abraham Lincoln

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.

Honore de Balzac

In the evening of life we shall be judged on love, and not one of us is going to come off very well, and were it not for my absolute faith in the loving forgiveness of my Lord I could not call on him to come.

Madeleine L'Engle

Precious gifts of friendship... knowing the heart of another, sharing one's heart with another.

Source Unknown

The old idea that the joke was not good enough for the company has been superseded by the new aristocratic idea that the company was not worthy of the joke. They have introduced an almost insane individualism into that one form of intercourse which is specially and uproariously communal. They have made even levities into secrets. They have made laughter lonelier than tears.

G. K. Chesterton

There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of ones fellow man.

Groucho Marx

The urge to shout filthy words at the top of his voice was as strong as ever.

George Orwell

The distinctive character of a child is to always live in the tangible present.

John Ruskin

The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.

Thomas Jefferson

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks.

Erica Jong

Exhaust your worries and they will soon leave you.

Stephen Richards