I studied voice for about two years with an amazing coach, and I never rose above the level of mediocre.

Every human being is spirit and truth is the self-activity of appropriation.

Søren Kierkegaard

It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its briers over a hawthorn-bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right down to the grass, splashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt stars, pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large splashed stars the roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls. The dusk came like smoke around, and still did not put out the roses.

D.H. Lawrence

All my jobs have been with food in one way or another since 1948. My parents were in the hotel business, and I just loved the warm hearted people who worked so hard with such good humor.

Graham Kerr

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

Samuel Johnson

I think national issues play into gubernatorial races less than, obviously, in Senate and Congressional races. Much less. They tend to be more decided by personality, leadership qualities and by state or local issues. They still have some effect, no question about it, but not as much as Senate and Congressional races.

Edward G. Rendell

That U.N. Security Council resolution requires getting Syrian troops and intelligence officials out of Lebanon so that the Lebanese can have elections here this spring that are free and fair and free of outside influence.

Stephen Hadley

Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.

Margaret Mead

The services in wartime are fit only for desperadoes, but in peace are only fit for fools.

Benjamin Disraeli

The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.

Thomas Jefferson

Why, life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford

Samuel Johnson

Buyers are graded not only on their successes, but also on their failures. Too many hits means the buyer isn't taking enough chances.

Leslie Wexner

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

Nelson Mandela