I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?

Contrary to what we usually believe . . . the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times--although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them.The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: T

I'm a horrible romantic!

Jamie Campbell Bower

Give and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over... Luke 6:38

Bible

I hope all you young girls see yourself up there... we were just like you.

Mia Hamm

It's amazing how I can just ramble on for hours, isn't it? And so unentertaining or uninteresting. But I can ramble on for hours. It's a sort of terrible gift, isn't it?

Graham Norton

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Hostage is a crucifying aloneness. It is a silent, screaming slide into the bowels of ultimate despair. Hostage is a man hanging by his fingernails over the edge of chaos, feeling his fingers slowly straightening. Hostage is the humiliating stripping away of every sense and fiber of body and mind and spirit that make us what we are. Hostage is a mutant creation filled with fear, self-loathing, guilt and death-wishing. But he is a man, a rare, unique and beautiful creation of which these things are no part.

Brian Keenan

Force rules the world, and not opinion; but opinion is that which makes use of force

Blaise Pascal

The economics of industrialized countries would collapse if women didn't do the work they do for free: According to economist Marilyn Waring, throughout the West it generates between 25 and 40 percent of the gross national product.

Naomi Wolf

Habits are formed by the repetition of particular acts. They are strengthened by an increase in the number of repeated acts. Habits are also weakened or broken, and contrary habits are formed by the repetition of contrary acts.

Mortimer J. Adler

Evil is done without effort, naturally, it is the working of fate good is always the product of an art.

Charles Baudelaire

There are places and moments in which one is so completely alone that one sees the world entire.

Jules Renard