I don't have a long family history of good cooks in my family.

The imagination equips us to perceive reality when it is not fully materialized.

Mary Caroline Richards

Order and disorder', said the speaker, 'they each have their beauty.

Orson Scott Card

In the darkest hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, yet, even then, it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be chaste than licentious, better to be true than false, better to be brave than to be a coward. Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who, in the tempestuous darkness of the soul, has dared to hold fast to these venerable landmarks. Thrice blest is he who, when all is dreary and cheerless within and without, when his teachers terrify him, and friends shrink from him, has obstinately clung to moral good.

Frederick William Robertson

If he were allowed contact with foreigners he would discover that they are creatures similar to himself and that most of what he has been told about them is lies. The sealed world in which he lives would be broken, and the fear, hatred, and self-righteousness on which his morale depends might evaporate. It is therefore realized on all sides that however ofter Persia, or Egypt, or Java, or Ceylon may change hands, the main frontiers must never be crossed by anything except bombs.

George Orwell

In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.

Leonardo da Vinci

The violent illiteracies of the graffiti, the clenched silence of the adolescent, the nonsense cries from the stage-happening, are resolutely strategic. The insurgent and the freak-out have broken off discourse with a cultural system which they despise as a cruel, antiquated fraud. They will not bandy words with it. Accept, even momentarily, the conventions of literate linguistic exchange, and you are caught in the net of the old values, of the grammars that can condescend or enslave.

George Steiner

I define success as being comfortable with yourself and your life. And that is about as good as it gets, really.

Treat Williams

If a man is as wise as a serpent, he can afford to be as harmless as a dove.

American Indian Proverb, Cheyenn

Of all the important relationships that Australia has with other countries, none has been more greatly transformed over the last 10 years than our relationship with China.

John Howard

When younger, I was thin as a rail. As I've grown older, I've put on weight. I have continued to love myself in all those roles. Part of my spirituality, I always tell people, is to accept yourself for who you are.

Troy Perry

The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.

Samuel Johnson

CH: Have you told many fibs today? M: I lie a lot - it's really useful - but everything I've said today has been the whole truth and nothing but the truth. So help me... er... Trevor...

Steven Morrissey