When everyone drowns and I'm the only one to escape, God is protecting me. When everyone else is saved and I'm the only one to drown, God is protecting me then too.

You know that fiction, prose rather, is possibly the roughest trade of all in writing. You do not have the reference, the old important reference. You have the sheet of blank paper, the pencil, and the obligation to invent truer than things can be true. You have to take what is not palpable and make it completely palpable and also have it seem normal and so that it can become a part of experience of the person who reads it.

Ernest Hemingway

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future life.

Plato

Never lie when the truth is more profitable.

Stanislaw Lec

Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter. To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram -- lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull -- he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins -- that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path -- he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the virgin! that's our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales -- happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are curing the wound, when come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us; and, to wind up, with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.

Herman Melville

Why would anyone lie? The truth is always more colorful.

James Hall

Times like this were special. Memory builders. When something extraordinary happened to a person the kind of things remembered forever after it didn't have to be a life-changing event like a graduation or marriage or birth of a child. It more often was the small things. The sheer joy of summer sunlight on a fragrant flower. The giggle of a toddler. The brush of a lover's fingertips. And the person marks the moment with the flashing insight thinking... This is special. I should remember this

Sandra Hill

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

Malcolm X

Don't sit back and wait for life to happen to you. Have a plan and take the needed steps to create what you want.

Steve Maraboli

No one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.

James Baldwin

Unlimited power corrupts the possessor.

William Pitt

There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/bernice/bernice.html

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Bernice Bob

Confidence is that feeling by which the mind embarks in great and honorable courses with a sure hope and trust in itself.

Marcus Tullius Cicero