The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.

People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe.

Neil Gaiman

It's fantastic to strive towards a nice life where you eat nice organic food and your children go to a nice school and you can afford nice clothes and nice perfume and the hypoallergenic make-up. But there's never a day goes by, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, that I don't think about where I'm from.

Samantha Morton

The true test of civilization is, not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops - no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

Samuel Johnson

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

Joseph Addison

A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.

Albert Camus

The fact is five months ago this was an issue that people weren't really talking that much about. Because of the president's leadership, because he's brought it to people's attention, it's now a top issue.

Ken Mehlman

Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.

Charlie Chaplin

For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews.

Simon Wiesenthal

Life and death have been lacking in my life.

Jorge Luis Borges

The intellect is not a serious thing, and never has been. It is an instrument on which one plays, that is all.

Oscar Wilde

A mind that questions everything, unless strong enough to bear the weight of its ignorance, risks questioning itself and being engulfed in doubt. If it cannot discover the claims to existence of the objects of its questioning -- and it would be miraculous if it so soon succeeded in solving so many mysteries -- it will deny them all reality, the mere formulation of the problem already implying an inclination to negative solutions. But in so doing it will become void of all positive content and, finding nothing which offers it resistance, will launch itself perforce into the emptiness of inner revere.

Emile Durkheim