My dad was an engineer and so I had this picture of science and technology and pursuits of the mind as being more impressive than artistic pursuits, which I saw a as kind of frivolous.

A little reflection will enable any person to detect in himself that setness in trifles which is the result of the unwatched instinct of self-will and to establish over himself a jealous guardianship.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Pleasures are all alike simply considered in themselves: he that hunts, or he that governs the commonwealth, they both please themselves alike, only we commend that, whereby we ourselves receive some benefit.

John Selden

In passing, we should note this curious mark of our own age: the only absolute allowed is the absolute insistence that there is no absolute.

Francis Schaeffer

Life's a shit sandwich, my ass. Life's a polka and don't you forget it!

Wally Lamb

Do you believe in fate?I guess, but... it?s more about creating the life you want so you can make that fate a reality. You know?

Susane Colasanti

I have great friends around me that are positive and I think that's the key to life is making your own path. Set your own rules because there is no set rule, there is no set look, there is no set anything. You make your own rules in your life. You make your own decisions.

Amber Riley

My friends! There are no friends

Aristotle

Man is only a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a thinking reed. There is no need for the whole universe to take up arms to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than his slayer, because he knows that he is dying and the advantage the universe has over him. The universe knows nothing of this.

Blaise Pascal

In the depth of the near depression, that he faced when he came in, Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress provided 'recovery funds' that literally kept our classrooms open. Two years ago, these funds saved nearly 20,000 teacher and education jobs - just here in North Carolina.

Jim Hunt

...as they slid stock words and phrases back and forth between them like beads on an abacus.

J.K. Rowling

It's just that fun atmosphere, working on the car, being with the guys. This is exactly what I needed.

Kurt Busch

Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual.

Cyril Connolly