The local is a shabby thing. There's nothing worse than bringing us back down to our own little corner, our own territory, the radiant promiscuity of the face to face. A culture which has taken the risk of the universal, must perish by the universal.

Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.

George Eliot

Eagerly, musician,Sweep your string,So we may sing,Elated, optative,Our several voicesInterblending,Playfully contending,Not interferingBut co-inhering,For all withinThe cincture of the soundIs holy ground,Where all are Brothers,None faceless Others. Let mortals bewareOf words, forWith words we lie,Can say peaceWhen we mean war,Foul thought speak fairAnd promise falsely,But song is true:Let music for peaceBe the paradigm,For peace means to changeAt the right time,As the World-Clock,Goes Tick and Tock. So may the storyOf our human cityPresently moveLike music, whenBegotten notesNew notes beget,Making the flowingOf time a growing,Till what it could be,At last it is,Where even sadnessIs a form of gladness,Where Fate is Freedom,Grace and Surprise.

W. H. Auden

Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.

Arnold Bennett, "The Arnold Benn

Failure or success seem to have been allotted to men by their stars. But they retain the power of wriggling, of fighting with their star or against it, and in the whole universe the only really interesting movement is this wriggle.

E. M. Forster, "repr. In Abinger

You have to come in and be that character when you walk into the room. That's what one of my first acting teachers taught me. You know, don't go in there being Jennifer and then expect to flip and change, because they're not going to have that imagination.

Jennifer Lopez

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks, if we agree with him.

Mark Twain

Making movies is a way of understanding myself and the world.

Ang Lee

The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.

Desmond Morris

By My life! But for the obligation to acknowledge the Cause of Him Who is the Testimony of God... I would not have announced this unto thee... All the keys of heaven God hath chosen to place on My right hand, and all the keys of hell on My left...

Báb

I believe that God has planted in every heart the desire to live in freedom.

George W. Bush

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

Educational equality doesn't guarantee equality on the labor market. Even the most developed countries are not gender-equal. There are still glass ceilings and 'leaky pipelines' that prevent women from getting ahead in the workplace.

Michelle Bachelet