I suppose we all lie to ourselves sometimes.

The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.

Marcellinus Ammianus

Was I asleep? Had I slept?

Samuel Beckett

I used to think religion was just more of the same thing. Dump responsibility on the big guy. Now I see an importance in that. It's a relief to accept that not everything is under your control.

Barbara Kingsolver

When Andrew went with the girls, we were talking all morning and he was saying, 'It's okay. Just remember we had such a good day. Our wedding was so perfect.' Because we're such a unit together. He made me feel very part of the day on April the 29th.

Sarah Ferguson

I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.

Martin Buber

You see, you all start with the premise that democracy is some good. I don't think it's worth a damn. I think Churchill is right, the only thing to be said for democracy is that there is nothing else that's any better, and therefore he used to say, Tyranny tempered by assassination, but lots of assassination. People say, If the Congress were more representative of the people it would be better. I say the Congress is too damn representative. It's just as stupid as the people are; just as uneducated, just as dumb, just as selfish. You know the Congress is a perfect example, and created to be a perfect example.http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/acheson.htm

Dean Acheson, interview with The

It's going to be fun to watch and see how long the meek can keep the earth after they inherit it.

Kin Hubbard

Il bel far niente means 'the beauty of doing nothing'... [it] has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life's achievement. You don't necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either.

Elizabeth Gilbert

I call crony capitalism, where you take money from successful small businesses, spend it in Washington on favored industries, on favored individuals, picking winners and losers in the economy, that's not pro-growth economics. That's not entrepreneurial economics. That's not helping small businesses. That's cronyism, that's corporate welfare.

Paul Ryan

A lot of the fun lies in trying to penetrate the mystery and this is best done by saying over the lines to yourself again and again, till they pass through the stage of sounding like nonsense, and finally return to a full sense that had at first escaped notice.

Anthony Hecht

An age is called Dark, not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

James A. Michener

There is simply no dignified way for a woman to live alone. Oh, she can get along financially perhaps (though not nearly as well as a man), but emotionally she is never left in peace. Her friends, her family, her fellow workers never let her forget that her husbandlessness, her childlessness -- her selfishness, in short -- is a reproach to the American way of life.

Erica Jong