It's tempting to say the Ph.D. didn't have an effect, but it's not so. I think whatever resonance I may be able to achieve is in part simply from the amount of reading and learning that I acquired along the way.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

Johann von Goethe

Come into the light of things. Let nature be your teacher.

William Wordsworth

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

Elmer G. Letterman

The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous.

J. K. Rowling

The beauty of a strong, lasting commitment is often best understood by men incapable of it.

Murray Kempton

Backbite. To speak of a man as you find him when he can't find you.

Ambrose Bierce

There aren't many irritations to match the condescension which a woman metes out to a man who she believes has loved her vainly for the past umpteen years.

Edward Hoagland

Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.

Aristotle

You can do more with a castle in a story than with the best cardboard castle that ever stood on a nursery table.

C.S. Lewis

Perfect beauty implies perfect simplicity, a quality that at first sight does not arouse the emotions which we feel before gigantic works, objects whose very disproportion constitutes an element of beauty.

Eugene Delacroix

Japan is the most intoxicating place for me. In Kyoto, there's an inn called the Tawaraya which is quite extraordinary. The Japanese culture fascinates me: the food, the dress, the manners and the traditions. It's the travel experience that has moved me the most.

Roman Coppola

Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.

Phillips Brooks