It was not just that Ross Macdonald taught us how to write; he did something much more, he taught us how to read, and how to think about life, and maybe, in some small, but mattering way, how to live.

I came hither solely with the design to simplify my way of life and to secure the independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself.

Thomas Carlyle

We must expect to fail... but fail in a learning posture, determined no to repeat the mistakes, and to maximize the benefits from what is learned in the process.

Ted W. Engstrom

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

Robert Byrne

We need to know ourselves better so that we can realize what we really want in our life. I think that the first condition for a person to be in a successful relationship is to be happy with the person he or she is, in other words to love themselves.

Tarkan

No matter how dark the moment, love and hope are always possible.

George Chakiris

I do not have much liking for the too famous existential philosophy, and, to tell the truth, I think its conclusions false.

Albert Camus

The rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

William Shakespeare

Everything about riding a bicycle compels you towards beauty.

BikeSnobNYC

Look at the tyranny of party-- at what is called party allegiance, party loyalty-- a snare invented by designing men for selfish purposes-- and which turns voters into chattels, slaves, rabbits; and all the while, their masters, and they themselves are shouting rubbish about liberty, independence, freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, honestly unconscious of the fantastic contradiction; and forgetting or ignoring that their fathers and the churches shouted the same blasphemies a generation earlier when they were closing thier doors against the hunted slave, beating his handful of humane defenders with Bible-texts and billies, and pocketing the insults nad licking the shoes of his Southern master.

Mark Twain

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

Honore de Balzac

I loved hip-hop. The first stuff I heard was Public Enemy, and I couldn't believe it. It was amazing, and I've always loved hip-hop.

Joaquin Phoenix

A modern health and social care system has to be completely focussed on the needs of its users.

Patricia Hewitt