What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism.

Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture.

William Blackstone

I don't really know that this story has a whole lot of things happen in it. It doesn't really. It's just a record of how things were in my life during this last winter. I guess things happened, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Markus Zusak

The world is a good judge of things, for it is in natural ignorance, which is man's true state. The sciences have two extremes which meet. The first is the pure natural ignorance in which all men find themselves at birth. The other extreme is that reached by great intellects, who, having run through all that men can know, find they know nothing, and come back again to that same ignorance from which they set out; but this is a learned ignorance which is conscious of itself. Those between the two, who have departed from natural ignorance and not been able to reach the other, have some smattering of this vain knowledge and pretend to be wise. These trouble the world and are bad judges of everything. The people and the wise constitute the world; these despise it, and are despised. They judge badly of everything, and the world judges rightly of them.

Blaise Pascal

If some really acute observer made as much of egotism as Freud has made of sex, people would forget a good deal about sex and find the explanation for everything in egotism.

Wallace Stevens

Being in the studio is a really romantic time.

Alison Krauss

Make decisions from the heart and use your head to make it work out.

Sir Girad

With more than 1,300 sites of care, VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the county.

Bob Filner

It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.

Napoleon Hill

Rather than having regrets over events in the past, or worrying whether or not the future will bring you what you need or desire, allow yourself to rest in the present, the now. Understand that all that has transpired has brought you to this moment, and in this very moment, riches that far outweigh those of the world already lie within you.

Kristi Bowman

All I want is a best friend whom I can't wait to kiss again.

Robin Palmer

So many fail because they don't get started -- they don't go. They don't overcome inertia. They don't begin.

W. Clement Stone

[T]he nature of science is not that of a steady, linear progression toward the Truth, but rather a tortuous road, often characterized by dead ends and U-turns, and yet ultimately inching toward a better, if tentative, understanding of the natural world.

Massimo Pigliucci