There is no person so severely punished, as those who subject themselves to the whip of their own remorse.

Is life worth living? It all depends on the liver.

William James

Yes... it wasn't over, it still isn't over.

Nicholas Sparks

We like to think about how smart we are. But I think talent as a writer is hard-wired in, it's all there, at least the basic elements of it. You can't change it any more than you can choose whether to be right handed or left handed.

Stephen King

I thought my life was mapped out. Research, living in the forest, teaching and writing. But in '86 I went to a conference and realised the chimpanzees were disappearing. I had worldwide recognition and a gift of communication. I had to use them.

Jane Goodall

I would never discourage anyone from doing what it is in life that they want to do. But I would encourage them to find out the pros and cons of anything they become involved in.

Rita Mero

Hope is nature's veil for hiding truth's nakedness.

Alfred Nobel

I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything.

Michael Phelps

Liberalism is a religion. Its tenets cannot be proved, its capacity for waste and destruction demonstrated. But it affords a feeling of spiritual rectitude at little or no cost.

David Mamet

The lives of happy people are dense with their own doings -- crowded, active, thick. But the sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks and no boundaries; sorrow's horizons are vague and its demands are few.

Larry McMurtry

Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.

Martin Luther

The matter on which I judge people is their willingness, or ability, to handle contradiction. Thus Paine was better than Burke when it came to the principle of the French revolution, but Burke did and said magnificent things when it came to Ireland, India and America. One of them was in some ways a revolutionary conservative and the other was a conservative revolutionary. It's important to try and contain multitudes. One of my influences was Dr Israel Shahak, a tremendously brave Israeli humanist who had no faith in collectivist change but took a Spinozist line on the importance of individuals. Gore Vidal's admirers, of whom I used to be one and to some extent remain one, hardly notice that his essential critique of America is based on Lindbergh and 'America First' the most conservative position available. The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

Christopher Hitchens

Peace is the happy natural state of man war is corruption and disgrace.

James Thomson