You may set it down as a truth which admits of few exceptions, that those who ask your opinion really want your praise, and will be contented with nothing less.

In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I think people are used to seeing actors be wide open and desperately giving of themselves, and while I do that on a movie set as much as I can, it's so unnatural for me to do it on television, in interviews, in anything like that. I also don't find that my process as an actor is really anyone else's business.

Kristen Stewart

...There are bad novels and good novels, as there are bad pictures and good pictures; but that is the only distinction in which I see any meaning... When one says picture, one says of character, when one says novel, one says of incident, and the terms may be transposed. What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?... It is an incident for a woman to stand up with her hand resting on a table and look out at you in a certain way; or if it be not an incident, I think it will be hard to say what it is. At the same time it is an expression of character. If you say you don't see it (character in that

Henry James, The Art of Fiction,

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness poverty and wealth have both failed.

Kin Hubbard

Why should we not expect self-designated environmental leaders to practice what they preach?

David Frum

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I have a big problem with piped music. I like either silence or to listen to it properly.

Sting

I think it was T.S. Eliot who talked about good poetry being felt before it's understood. I believe that. There are some bands where I love their lyrics but I don't have a clue what they're on about.

Marcus Mumford

Most children - I know I did when I was a kid - fantasize another set of parents. Or fantasize no parents. They don't tell their real parents about that - you don't want to tell Mom and Dad. Kids lead a very private life. And I was a typical child, I think. I was a liar.

Maurice Sendak

It happens as one sees in cages: the birds who are outside despair of ever getting in, and those within are equally desirous of getting out

Michel de Montaigne

The idea of redemption is always good news, even if it means sacrifice or some difficult times.

Patti Smith

Religion must mainly be a matter of principles only. It cannot be a matter of rules. The moment it degenerates into rules, it ceases to be a religion, as it kills responsibility which is an essence of the true religious act.

B. R. Ambedkar