What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.

I think that obviously, there is a perverse attraction to a fundamentally changed world or the end of the world. There is a death wish, a perverse death wish. Not just for ourselves, not just for the movie 'Death Wish,' but for the end of all human life.

John Hodgman

Perfection has one grave defect. It is apt to be dull.

W. Somerset Maugham

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

James Thurber

I'm obsessed with the 1920s, everything from the style to the lifestyle. It was a really cool era.

Lauren Conrad

I have changed my mind, and changed the trimmings of my cap this morning; they are now such as you suggested.

Jane Austen

It feels really sad, to me, to go to a dark bedroom. It's like surrendering to the night or something.

James Franco

Nothing is so beautiful as spring -- when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Respond intelligently even to unintelligent treatment.

Lao Tzu

Love is the strangest, most illogical thing in the world.

Jennifer E. Smith

Sculpture and painting have the effect of teaching us manners and abolishing hurry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life, deal gently with her ... Love, never desert her

L.M. Montgomery

My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another black guy in Piedmont, W.Va., and his name was Skip. They called him Big Skip, and I was Little Skip.

Henry Louis Gates