I have four strikes against me. I'm black, I'm short, I'm intelligent, and I have a medical condition.

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass, the mere materials with which wisdom builds, till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place, does but encumber whom it seems to enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

William Cowper

We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.

Maxwell Maltz

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth.

V. S. Pritchett

Our paths have crossed and parted, This love affair was started Long, long ago. This love survives the ages In its story lives are pages Fill them up, may ours turn slow.

Paul Williams (songwriter)

Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either.

Jon Meacham

For it is the suffering flesh, it is suffering, it is death, that lovers perpetuate upon the earth. Love is at once the brother, son, and father of death, which is its sister, mother, and daughter. And thus it is that in the depth of love there is a depth

Miguel de Unamuno

I talk to women's groups all over the country and see women struggling with this. The fear of not being accepted, of being different, of not having a man, all make it hard for a woman to do what she really believes is right for her.

Olympia Dukakis

What I've learned is I want to enjoy my life, and food is a big part of it.

Gwyneth Paltrow

Love is a verb.

Clare Boothe Luce

We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.

Maria Weston Chapman

Every aspect of Western culture needs a new code of ethics -- a rational ethics -- as a precondition of rebirth.

Ayn Rand

There, at a depth to which divers would find it difficult to descend, are caverns, haunts, and dusky mazes, where monstrous creatures multiply and destroy each other. Huge crabs devour fish and are devoured in their turn. Hideous shapes of living things, not created to be seen by human eyes wander in this twilight. Vague forms of antennae, tentacles, fins, open jaws, scales, and claws, float about there, quivering, growing larger, or decomposing and perishing in the gloom, while horrible swarms of swimming things prowl about seeking their prey.To gaze into the depths of the sea is, in the imagination, like beholding the vast unknown, and from its most terrible point of view. The submarine gulf is analogous to the realm of night and dreams. There also is sleep, unconsciousness, or at least apparent unconsciousness, of creation. There in the awful silence and darkness, the rude first forms of life, phantomlike, demoniacal, pursue their horrible instincts.

Victor Hugo