If it seems to us that we are not satisfied with life, we should see this as a reason to be unsatisfied with ourselves.

Courage in danger is half the battle.

Plautus

Grief is a curious thing, when it happens unexpectedly. It is a Band-Aidbeing ripped away, taking the top layer off a family. And the underbellyof a household is never pretty, ours no exception. There were times Istayed in my room for days on end with headphones on, if only so that Iwould not have to listen to my mother cry. There were the weeks that myfather worked round-the-clock shifts, so that he wouldn't have to comehome to a house that felt too big for us.

Jodi Picoult

Though a living cannot be made from art, art makes life worth living. It makes starving, living.

John Sloan

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention aand innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared. Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

J.K. Rowling

Completely forgetting about dinner, he walked slowly back up to Gryffindor tower. Cho's voice echoing in his ears with every step he took... . He had been starting to quite like Cedric - prepared to overlook the fact that he had once beaten him at Quidditch, and was handsome, and popular, and nearly everyone's favourite champion. Now he suddenly realised Cedric was in fact a useless pretty-boy who didn't have enough brains to fill an eggcup.

J.K. Rowling

More and more, Democrats are starting to worry they that they have a more um, colorful version of Jimmy Carter on their hands. Obama acts cool as a proverbial cucumber but that awful '70s show seems frightfully close to a rerun.

Eric Alterman

People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.

Vince Lombardi

Pitting your dream against someone else's is a fantastic way to get discouraged and depressed.

Jonathan Acuff

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it, not when it's around your neck.

Chinua Achebe

This increase in the life span and in the number of our senior citizens presents this Nation with increased opportunities: the opportunity to draw upon their skill and sagacityand the opportunity to provide the respect and recognition they have earned. It is not enough for a great nation merely to have added new years to lifeour objective must also be to add new life to those years.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Poetry is something to make us wiser and better, by continually revealing those types of beauty and truth, which God has set in all men's souls.

James Russell Lowell

Everyone goes through Hell; the point is not to walk out empty handed.

Rabbi Steve Leder