The 'democracy gap' in our politics and elections spells a deep sense of powerlessness by people who drop out, do not vote, or listlessly vote for the 'least worst' every four years and then wonder why after every cycle the 'least worst' gets worse.

Slowly poetry becomes visual because it paints images, but it is also musical: it unites two arts into one.

Eugenio Montale

But Dumbledore says he doesn't care what they do as long as they don't take him off the Chocolate Frog cards.

J.K. Rowling

Love is the river of life in the world.

Henry Ward Beecher

The perceived wisdom is that people do not go in large numbers to black-and-white movies anymore - which is a great shame, but I'd love to make a black-and-white movie one day.

Sam Mendes

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you -- it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

Philip Roth

On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.

H. Allen Smith

Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.

Paul Theroux

A car to pick me up every day, a chair with my name on it, everybody being very polite... what can you do except sit back and watch it all, try to take it all in?

Charles Dance

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Theodore Roosevelt

I am inspired by anything beautiful. Sometime it's a pair of eyes or flowing gorgeous hair, other times it's the sky or a sunset. I've been inspired by supple skin or the texture of a soft shirt.

Nadine Velazquez

What is to absurd to be believed is believed because it is too absurd to be a lie.

Robert Jordan

I do believe that there are some universal cognitive tasks that are deep and profound - indeed, so deep and profound that it is worthwhile to understand them in order to design our displays in accord with those tasks.

Edward Tufte