The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

I like a very dry wit, not the big kind of humor like Robin Williams. I don't think I'm capable of that.

Chris Cooper

The voice collects and translates your bad physical health, your emotional worries, your personal troubles.

Placido Domingo

Courage and grace is a formidable mixture. The only place to see it is the bullring.

Marlene Dietrich

It's a sad and stupid thing to have to proclaim yourself a revolutionary just to be a decent man.

David Harris

When a friend, then, indulges in the joy of unburdening a secret on to another friend's bosom, he makes the latter, in his turn, feel the urge to taste the same joy himself. He implores him, it is true, not to tell a soul; but if such a condition were taken absolutely literally, it would at once cut off the flow of these joys at their very source. The general practice is for the secret to be confided only to an equally trustworthy friend, the same conditions being imposed on him. And so from trustworthy friend to trustworthy friend the secret goes moving on round that immense chain, until finally it reaches the ears of just the very person or persons whom the first talker had expressly intended it never should reach.

Alessandro Manzoni

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.

Marcus Aurelius

The thing about being famous is, it's weird. The only people who get how weird it is are other famous people.

Margot Kidder

It's how we spend our time here and now, that really matters. If you are fed up with the way you have come to interact with time, change it.

Wieder Marcia

I am firmly of the opinion that women who make a lot of effort to hang onto their looks in middle age (unless they are beauties, entertainers or prostitutes) are rather sad, as one should surely have something more substantial to recommend one by this time, such as kindness or cleverness.

Julie Burchill

There is no wealth but life.

John Ruskin

If knowledge and foresight are too penetrating and deep, unify them with ease and sincerity.

Xun Zi

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

Chanakya