How terribly hard and almost impossible it is to tell the truth. More than anything else, the artist in us prevents us from telling aught as it really happened. We deal with the truth as the cook deals with meat and vegetables.

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.

Mark Twain

If you can control your behavior when everything around you is out of control, you can model for your children a valuable lesson in patience and understanding...and snatch an opportunity to shape character.

Jane Clayson Johnson

The vanishing of languages, like those of living species, is an event that has been repeated many times in history. Localized disasters such as a volcano eruptions, great floods or warfare have played a part, but in the modern era the spread of Europeans--and European diseases--has greatly accelerated the pace of destruction. Local or regional language communities may be overpowered by a dominant metropolitan language, which increases the pressure to neglect the ancestral tongue in favor of the new one and is seen as the key to prospering in the dominant culture. Children may be forbidden to use their mother tongue in the classroom, as has occurred to many groups, including the Welsh, Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians. Speakers of minority languages have been forcibly relocatedand combined with speakers of other languages, as happened when Africans were brought to the Americas as slaves. Practices such as these have made Native American languages the most imperiled of any on the earth.The death of a language is not only a tragedy for those directly involved but also an irretrievable cultural loss for the rest of the world. Through language, each culture expresses a unique worldview. Thus, any effort to preserve linguistic variety implies a deep respect for the positive values of other cultures.

Rodger Doyle, Scientific America

There's been a concerted effort to steal Christmas.

Jerry Falwell

A politician would do well to remember that he has to live with his conscience longer than he does with his constituents.

Melvin R. Laird

We choose our next world through what we learn in this one. Learn nothing, and the next world is the same as this one, all the same limitations and lead weights to overcome.

Richard Bach

Young girls look to me as a role model and think I crash diet to keep slim. That's not true, I always eat properly.

Denise Van Outen

Delegating means letting others become the experts and hence the best.

Timothy Firnstahl

I would forgive my mom, but she's going to have to admit she did some things that were wrong.

Aaron Carter

The other day, I was walking my dog around my building...on the ledge. Some people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.

Steven Wright

Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal.

Philip Massinger

And then he gives me a smile that just seems so genuinely sweet with just the right touch of shyness that unexpected warmth rushes through me.

Suzanne Collins