It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas . . . If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you . . . On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.

Wars, wars, wars': reading up on the region I came across one moment when quintessential Englishness had in fact intersected with this darkling plain. In 1906 Winston Churchill, then the minister responsible for British colonies, had been honored by an invitation from Kaiser Wilhelm II to attend the annual maneuvers of the Imperial German Army, held at Breslau. The Kaiser was 'resplendent in the uniform of the White Silesian Cuirassiers' and his massed and regimented infantry...Strange to find Winston Churchill and Sylvia Plath both choosing the word 'roller,' in both its juggernaut and wavelike declensions, for that scene.

Christopher Hitchens

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson

Being a singer is all about me. About ego. Being a mom is all about being selfless - two different worlds.

Gwen Stefani

We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.

Chuck Palahniuk

Wealth is not his that has it, but his who enjoys it.

Benjamin Franklin

If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.

Leo Rosten

From the mud of adversity grows the lotus of joy

Carolyn Marsden

I did skit comedy online for many years, beginning around 2001. Around 2006 I started watching a lot of food television and got re-interested in food. I come from a very food-obsessed family. But I also wanted to do my own thing, which was the comedy.

Nadia Giosia

Being a Jew, one learns to believe in the reality of cruelty and one learns to recognize indifference to human suffering as a fact.

Andrea Dworkin

Since I've been in Playboy myself in Australia, I love it, and I think it's really empowering and positive towards women, which is not a view that many women hold.

Dannii Minogue

And there are really never endings, happy or otherwise.

Erin Morgenstern

It is not possible to overstate the influence of Paul Cezanne on twentieth-century art. He's the modern Giotto, someone who shattered one kind of picture-making and invented a new one that the world followed.

Jerry Saltz