Sticking to a diet required me to have a permanently low self-esteem. But happily, I developed other skills beyond a fluctuating weight, eventually building up a different source of self-worth.

There is no progress whatever. Everything is just the same as it was thousands, and tens of thousands, of years ago. The outward form changes. The essence does not change.

Robert Louis Stevenson

For ritual allows those who cannot will themselves out of the secular to perform the spiritual, as dancing allows the tongue-tied man a ceremony of love.

Andre Dubus

It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.

D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

Although I do not have a family, I have eyes, ears and imagination, and know, as most people know, that the importance of one's children is paramount.

Lara St. John

But remember, when the people once part with power, they can seldom or never resume it but by force. Many instances can be produced in which the people have voluntarily increased the powers of their rulers; but few, if any, in which rulers have willingly abridged their authority. This is a sufficient reason to induce you to be careful, in the first instance, how you deposit the powers of government.

Robert Yates

I do not agree with a word that you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Voltaire

In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

Winston Churchill

I don't feel despair because I am able to make the films I want to make, and that gives me hope.

Alexander Payne

If you are joyful, do not worry about lukewarmness. Joy will shine in your eyes and in your look, in your conversation and in your countenance. You will not be able to hide it because joy overflows.

Mother Teresa

All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists.

Stephen Sondheim

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

Lord (John Emerich Edward Dalber

Nature breaks through the eyes of the cat.

Proverb