Health is not valued till sickness comes.

A writer off-guard since the materials with which he works are so dangerous can expect agony as quick as a thunderclap.

Kurt Vonnegut

There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society's ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom. In most all the descriptions of the periods preceding the rise of mass movements there is reference to vast ennui; and in their earliest stages mass movements are more likely to find sympathizers and support among the bored than among the exploited and oppressed. To a deliberate fomenter of mass upheavals, the report that people are bored stiff should be at least as encouraging as that they are suffering from intolerable economic or political abuses.When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored. The consciousness of a barren, meaningless existence is the main fountainhead of boredom. People who are not conscious of their individual separatedness, as is the case with those who are members or a compact tribe, church, party, etcetera, are not accessible to boredom. The differentiated individual is free of boredom only when he is engaged either in creative work or some absorbing occupation or when he is wholly engrossed in the struggle for existence. Pleasure-chasing and dissipation are ineffective palliatives. Where people live autonomous lives and are not badly off, yet are without abilities or opportunities for creative work or useful action, there is no telling to what desperate and fantastic shifts they might resort in order to give meaning and purpose to their lives.

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (

Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility... in the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have... is the ability to take on responsibility.

Michael Korda

I love films that make me react emotionally and physically when you walk out of the cinema. Two of my favorite films however have got to be 'The Tree Of Life' and 'The Piano Teacher,' which also stars one of my favourite actresses Isabelle Huppert.

Alicia Vikander

People were concerned about national security, and that precluded us from having the opportunity to break through on the issues that we cared most about - the economy, education and health care.

Tom Daschle

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Thomas Tusser

My biggest challenge is trust, and really believing that trust, in letting things just happen personally and professionally and trust with myself. But I'm getting better at it.

Katherine Moennig

But a whole bottle was what made me feel dead inside. And it worked, all the days stress was gone and I was able to live without the gigantic knot in my stomach. Without the boulders weighing down my shoulders.

Holly Hood

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

Jane Heard

Believe it is possible to solve your problem. Tremendous things happen to the believer. So believe the answer will come. It will.

Norman Vincent Peale

There are so many things to talk about between black people, Hispanic people, white people, gay people, men, women, it's all based on fear. We all have fears, this thing that stops us from embracing as we are one. We are never going to be one. People are messed up, but humor lets us see how ignorant we can be.

Marlon Wayans

The courage of the poets is to keep ajar the door that leads into madness.

Christopher Morley