Japan lives with drastic segregation between the sublime, the ugly, and the utterly without qualities. Dominance of the last 2 categories makes mere presence of the first stunning: when beauty 'happens', it is absolutely surprising.

Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age.

Jean-Francois Lyotard

As long as my heart's still in it, I'll keep going. If the passion's there, why stop?...There'll likely be a point of diminishing returns, a point where my strength will begin to wane. Until then, I'll just keep plodding onward, putting one foot in front of the other to the best of my ability. Smiling the entire time.

Dean Karnazes

Mine is just a simple old human story - of one person trying, with great rigor and discipline, to comprehend her personal relationship with divinity.

Elizabeth Gilbert

The genius of Republican liberty, seems to demand on one side, not only that all power should be derived from the people; but, that those entrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people, by a short duration of their appointments; and, that, even during this short period, the trust should be placed not in a few, but in a number of hands. Stability, on the contrary, requires, that the hands, in which power is lodged, should continue for a length of time, the same. A frequent change of men will result from a frequent return of electors, and a frequent change of measures, from a frequent change of men; whilst energy in Government requires not only a certain duration of power, but the execution of it by a single hand.

James Madison

There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

Henry Ford

Words are the small change of thought.

Jules Renard

Must one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the first symptom of the end?

Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn

The son has always felt like he was a footnote in one of the stories the father tells. The father is an amazing storyteller and one of the tales that he tells is how he met his wife.

Danny DeVito

What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower or winged air.

Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Any work of art that makes us feel the artist tried too hard lacks clarity.

Clayton Whitehill

Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.

W. H. Sheldon

All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.

Ernest Hemingway