However my parents - both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

When my grandfather died, I started adopting some of his accents, to sort of remind myself of him. A homage. He was a war hero, and he was really great with his hands.

Gavin DeGraw

The ideal of happiness has always taken material form in the house, whether cottage or castle; it stands for permanence and separation from the world.

Simone de Beauvoir

I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.

Patrick Henry

Women are constantly trying to commit suicide for love, but generally they take care not to succeed.

W. Somerset Maugham

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

Josh Billings

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy.

J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds:

I love the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly movies they're so beautiful to look at. It's such a shame we don't make them anymore. Although, I don't know how you could make tap dancing current and topical.

Jamie Bell

The commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants, that assumed the splendour of wealth only to obtain the privilege of trading with the stock of other men, and of contracting debts which nothing but lucky casu

Samuel Johnson

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

I wanted to be a doctor that I might be able to work without having to talk because for years I had been giving myself out in words.

Albert Schweitzer

Mark the babe not long accustomed to this breathing world; One that hath barely learned to shape a smile, though yet irrational of soul, to grasp with tiny finger -- to let fall a tear; And, as the heavy cloud of sleep dissolves, To stretch his limbs, becoming, as might seem. The outward functions of intelligent man.

William Wordsworth

I don't think it's any coincidence that I lost my religious faith and 'manned up' in the same year. I was described somewhere as a lapsed Catholic, which is funny because I'm not going back! I want to achieve things rather than live life in an animalistic way.

Jimmy Carr