What really fascinates me is this need that is so strong now that if you read a work of the imagination you instantly have to say, 'Oh, what this really is is so-and-so,' reducing it to a simple formula.

To expect alien technology to be just a few decades ahead of ours is too incredible to be taken seriously.

Paul Davies

Wine is a part of society because it provides a basis not only for a morality but also for an environment; it is an ornament in the slightest ceremonials of French daily life, from the snack to the feast, from the conversation at the local caf? to the speech at a formal dinner.

Roland Barthes

And what I saw happening is that women don't make one decision to leave the workforce. They makes lots of little decisions really far in advance that kind of inevitably lead them there.

Sheryl Sandberg

There are days when I intentionally don't write. For instance, I never write when I'm traveling, because travel is a situation where I can learn more by looking and listening than by working.

Thomas Perry

I like being able to walk into an old town and find good local food.

Sienna Miller

Poetry should be able to reach everybody, and it should be able to appeal to all levels of understanding.

Peter Davison

Do not hover always on the surface of things, nor take up suddenly, with mere appearances; but penetrate into the depth of matters, as far as your time and circumstances allow, especially in those things which relate to your profession.

Isaac Watts

In a way, this diversity is very exciting, but one has at some point to ask: are these real beginnings, or so many false starts?

Juliet Mitchell

She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

Neil Gaiman

Beauty has a persuasive power all its own.

Janette Rallison

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

The two best physicians of them all -- Dr. Laughter and Dr. Sleep.

Gregory Dean Jr.