When I hit a block, regardless of what I am writing, what the subject matter is, or what's going on in the plot, I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish, so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why, but it calms me, calms my brain.

Polygraph tests are 20th-century witchcraft.

Sam Ervin

We tend to connect bad food and bad habits with romance and sex.

Marilu Henner

[Patricia Greenfield] concluded that every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others. Our growing use of the Net and other screen-based technologies has led to the widespread and sophisticated development of visual-spatial skills. We can, for example, rotate objects in our minds better than we used to be able to. But our new strengths in visual-spatial intelligence go hand in hand with a weakening of our capacities for the kind of deep processing that underpins mindful knowledge acquisition, inductive analysis, critical thinking, imagination, and reflection.

Nicholas G. Carr

I wanted to make sure that this be the first scientific and technology revolution in history in which the public thoroughly discussed all the potential benefits and all the potential harms, in advance of the technology coming online and running its course.

Jeremy Rifkin

Popularity is not leadership.

Richard Marcinko

First we attacked the Russian soldiers with our gases, and then when we saw the poor fellows lying there, dying slowly, we tried to make breathing easier for them by using our own life-saving devices on them.

Otto Hahn

As much as I value an union of all the states, I would not admit the southern states into the union, unless they agreed to the discontinuance of this disgraceful trade, because it would bring weakness and not strength to the union.

George Mason

There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts

Theodore Roosevelt, Before Knigh

The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it. To some men of early performance it is useless. To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.

Thomas Hardy

The Wedding March has a bit of a death march in it.

Brian May

Sir, money, money, the most charming of all things; money, which will say more in one moment than the most elegant lover can in years. Perhaps you will say a man is not young; I answer he is rich. He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich --that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.

Henry Fielding

An earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs, some rulers, some subjects.

Martin Luther