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?

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint.

James Russell Lowell

For a Jewish guy, I've recorded a lot of Christmas albums.

Barry Manilow

Luck is a component that a lot of people in the arts sometimes fail to recognise: that you can have talent, perseverance, patience, but without luck you will not have a successful career.

Bryan Cranston

I know many married men, I even know a few happily married men, but I don't know one who wouldn't fall down the first open coal hole running after the first pretty girl who gave him a wink.

George Jean Nathan

Nothingever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the onset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have a malady in the less attractive forms.

Charles Dickens

They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

Giordano Bruno

Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.

Ursula K. Le Guin

When I wake up on a Monday morning and I realise I don't have to go and work at the civil service, I really think I've won.

Paul Merton

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

Henry David Thoreau

Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives - choice, not chance, determines your destiny.

Aristotle

I have to remind my dad, 'Journalists - no matter how many cigars they smoke with you - are not your friends, so don't talk to them.'

Cameron Diaz

Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.

Neil Gaiman