Often,our immediate reaction to a sudden crisis help us save ourselves. Our response to gradual crises that creep up upon us, on the other hand,may be so adaptive as to ultimately lead to self-destruction.

One of the reasons for the failure of feminism to dislodge deeply held perceptions of male and female behavior was its insistence that women were victims, and men powerful patriarchs, which made a travesty of ordinary people's experience of the mutual interdependence of men and women.

Rosalind Coward

Never speak of yourself to others; make them talk about themselves instead; therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everybody knows it, and everyone forgets it.

Edmond de Goncourt

Modesty is the lowest of the virtues, and is a real confession of the deficiency it indicates. He who undervalues himself is justly undervalued by others.

William Hazlitt

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

Mary Oliver

A fact in itself is nothing. It is valuable only for the idea attached to it, or for the proof which it furnishes.

Claude Bernard

There's no life without humour. It can make the wonderful moments of life truly glorious, and it can make tragic moments bearable.

Rufus Wainwright

In order for life to have appeared spontaneously on Earth, there first had to be hundreds of millions of protein molecules of the Ninth Configuration. But, given the size of the planet Earth, do you know how long it would take for just one of these protein molecules to appear by chance? Roughly 10 to the 243rd power, billions of years; and I find that far, far more fantastic than simply believing in a god.

William Peter Blatty, The Ninth

As long as the number one worry for people, keeping them up at nights, is whether they're going to have a job in the morning, then they are less likely to resist unfair changes, or unfair treatment, or cuts in real pay at work.

Frances O'Grady

Surprise me! Yogi's reply when he was asked by his wife, Carmen, where he would like to be buried

Yogi Berra

If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a-coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the road side until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence.

John B. Gough

My father was so good-natured and had such a happy disposition. I've always confused him with Jimmy Stewart. So, think Jimmy Stewart. That's my dad.

Jane Pauley

There is no waste of time in life like that of making explanations.

Benjamin Disraeli