An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.

I beg Osama to stop warring. He is a Muslim, and Islam means peace. Nobody wins in a war... I wish I were tapped in the problem about Iraq. I knew Saddam enough that I could have talked him into surrendering. But it's too late.

Imelda Marcos

I love all the old classic Disney movies. 'Pinocchio.' There are obviously tons of them that anybody growing up on that stuff takes with them their whole lives, and I'm an admirer of a lot of classic animation and fairy tales. I grew up on a book of Grimm's fairy tales that I kind of wore out again and again. That's all stuff that lingers with you.

Gary Ross

It is not enough to do your best you must know what to do, and then do your best.

W. Edwards Deming

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul.

Luther Burbank

Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.

Eugene Ionesco

One's nativity is not of his own choosing, but whatever it may be, it is entitled to respect and all nations have honorable place in the world's family.

Paul Harris

Skepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Winter then in its early and clear stages, was a purifying engine that ran unhindered over city and country, alerting the stars to sparkle violently and shower their silver light into the arms of bare upreaching trees. It was a mad and beautiful thing that scoured raw the souls of animals and man, driving them before it until they loved to run. And what it did to Northern forests can hardly be described, considering that it iced the branches of the sycamores on Chrystie Street and swept them back and forth until they rang like ranks of bells.

Mark Helprin

I suddenly remember being very little and being embraced by my father. I would try to put my arms around my father's waist, hug him back. I could never reach the whole way around the equator of his body; he was that much larger than life. Then one day, I could do it. I held him, instead of him holding me, and all I wanted at that moment was to have it back the other way.

Jodi Picoult

The theater needs continual reminders that there is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all.

Gore Vidal

I'm taking one thing at a time. With the children and launching my solo career it would drive me to a nervous breakdown if I tried to organise a wedding on top of that.

Natasha Hamilton