Merit is often an obstacle to fortune; the reason is it produces two bad effects, envy and fear.

I find in working always the disturbing intrusion of elements not a part of my most interested vision, and the inevitable obliteration and replacement of this vision by the work itself as it proceeds.

Edward Hopper

I love kids and children, and I love being a mom.

Jennie Garth

What is the highest secret to victory and peace? To will what God wills, and strike a league with destiny.

William R. Alger

In religion as in politics it so happens that we have less charity for those who believe half our creed, than for those who deny the whole of it.

Charles Caleb Colton

Assertiveness is not what you do, it's who you are!

Cal Le Mon

She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.

Lisa Genova

Acting is invigorating. But I don't analyse it too much. It's like a dog smelling where it's going to do its toilet in the morning.

Liam Neeson

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Francis Bacon

We now have a whole culture based on the assumption that people know nothing and so anything can be said to them.

Stephen Vizinczey

I do not feel betrayed. ... He has a fine record. He is a national hero. (On Oliver L North's work)

Ronald Reagan

The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.

Oscar Wilde

There is no truth on this island of yours. Rather, there are as many truths as there are stars in the sky; and every one of them different.

Juliet Marillier