He spoke of humor, and thought it must be one of the chief attributes of God. He cited plants and animals that were distinctly humorous in form and in their characteristics. These he declared were God's jokes.

Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.

Johann von Goethe

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.

Walter Benjamin

Mr. Henry James writes fiction as if it were a painful duty.

Oscar Wilde

Masterpieces are not single and solitary births they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.

Virginia Woolf

This aesthetic quality, then, is what politics is all about. It's authenticity that separates winners from losers, good politics from bad, and he-man leader-types from consultant-directed puppet-boys.

Thomas Frank

Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.

Martin Luther King Jr.

The flimsy little protestations that mark the front gate of every novel, the solemn statements that any resemblance to real persons living or dead is entirely coincidental, are fraudulent every time. A writer has no other material to make his people from than the people of his experience ... The only thing the writer can do is to recombine parts, suppress some characterisitics and emphasize others, put two or three people into one fictional character, and pray the real-life prototypes won't sue.

Wallace Stegner

Sometimes you've got to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.

Christopher Barzak

The complete life, the perfect pattern, includes old age as well as youth and maturity. The beauty of the morning and the radiance of noon are good, but it would be a very silly person who drew the curtains and turned on the light in order to shut out the tranquillity of the evening. Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.

W. Somerset Maugham

I can't get a relationship to last longer than it takes to make copies of their tapes.

Margaret Smith

Being brave...is not always being unafraid. Maybe it's more like doing what you know is right even when you're too tired. Or scared. It's going on and doing it anyway...even when you think you can't take one more step.

Bodie Thoene

All glory comes from daring to begin.

Eugene F. Ware