Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses.

And, you know, being able to wear the stars and stripes, when you step up on one of the blocks or, you know, when you step off of an airplane or when you hear the national anthem play, you know, it's one of the greatest feelings in the world because you know that there are people at home who are supporting you and watching you.

Michael Phelps

Draw a crazy picture,Write a nutty poem,Sing a mumble-gumble song,Whistle through your comb.Do a loony-goony dance'Cross the kitchen floor,Put something silly in the worldThat ain't been there before.

Shel Silverstein

Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.

Jane Austen

I would like to take you seriously, but to do so would affront your intelligence.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.

Kurt Vonnegut

Men are like a deck of cards. You'll find the occasional king, but most are jacks.

Laura Swenson

You change with the guys you date.

Jessica Simpson

Behave so the aroma of your actions may enhance the general sweetness of the atmosphere.

Henry David Thoreau

Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.

Henry David Thoreau

Science fiction is becoming more of a diverse kind of genre.

Anna Torv

Everyone has something of beauty about them. But loving let's you look, and look, and look again. You notice the back of a hand, the turn of a head, the way of a walk. When you first love, you look blind and you see it all as the glorious, beloved whole, or a beautiful sum of beautiful parts. But when you see the one you love as pieces, as why's, you can love those parts too, and it's a love at once more complicated and more complete.

Ally Condie

The higher a man stands on the social ladder, the greater the number of people he is connected with, the more power he has over other people, the more obvious is the predestination and inevitability of his every action.

Leo Tolstoy