Fiction is based on reality unless you're a fairy-tale artist, you have to get your knowledge of life from somewhere. You have to know the material you're writing about before you alter it.

It is unthinkable for a Frenchman to arrive at middle age without having syphilis and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Andre Gide

I love the feeling that you get when you can really laugh with a man and be natural and not always think that there's a sexual element going on. For me, flirting with a man means making fun of myself and trying to open myself and be very unpretentious.

Cameron Diaz

The civility which money will purchase, is rarely extended to those who have none.

Charles Dickens

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

Adrienne Rich

It's cool to go places where working people are happy.

Neil Young

Above our life we love a steadfast friend.

Christopher Marlowe

A girl's got to do what she's got to do to make somebody pay her a compliment. If that means moaning 'til the cows come home, then so be it.

Cat Deeley

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.

Henry David Thoreau

The 2012 London Olympic Games fostered a generation of hope. I witnessed women participating for the very first time, representing every nation.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

She's still small and I still want to put her in my pocket.-Seven Chillman, classmate

Laura Ruby

The belief that the world was created yesterday seems to hold great appeal to those born at that time.

Gary Malone

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life.

William Faulkner