I think my children know that Mother's priority is to be with them first. But I don't think it has to be an either/or situation. Work is very important to me, and it wouldn't be in the best interest of my children for me to stay home seven days a week.

You have to do something in your life that is honorable and not cowardly if you are to live in peace with yourself, and for the firefighter it is fire.

Larry Brown

I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses

They're not going to teach science at all. What they do is take the science students down to the lake, tie them in burlap sacks and throw them in. If God thinks they're good science students, they float.

Paula Poundstone

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

Albert Camus

Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind the gates of Hercules;Before him not the ghost of shores,Before him only shorless seas.The good Mate said, Now we must pray,For lo! the very stars are gone.Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!My men grow mutinous day by day;My men grow ghastly wan and weak!The stout Mate thought of home; a sprayOf salt wavewashed his swarthy cheek.What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,If we sight naught but seas at dawn?Why, you shall say at break of day,'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the Mate;This mad sea shows its teeth tonight.He curls his lip, he lies in wait,With lifted teeth, as if to bite!Brave Admiral, say but one good word;What shall we do when hope is gone?The words leapt like a leaping sword;Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!Then, pale and worn, he kept his deckAnd peered through darkness. Ah! that nightOf all dark nights! And then a speck --A light! A light! A light! A light!It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.He gained a world; he gave that worldIts greatest lesson: On! sail on!based on the courageous determination of Christopher Columbus

Joaquin Miller

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.

Albert A. Bartlett

A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom.

Roald Dahl

Suspicions that the mind, of itself, gathers, are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men's heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

Francis Bacon

For more than a year, he'd felt destined to marry Isabel Arundell; now, suddenly, he wasn't so sure. He loved her, that was certain, but he also resented her. He loved her strength and practicality but resented her overbearing personality and tendency to do things on his behalf without consulting him first; loved that she tolerated his interest in all things exotic and erotic but hated her blinkered Catholicism. Charles Darwin had killed God but she and her family, like so many others, still clung to the delusion.

Mark Hodder

Religion I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor.

Patrick Henry

Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, whose blood is in your own veins. Love between a man and a woman is founded on the mating instinct and is not free from desire and self-seeking. But to have a friend and to be true under any and all trials is the mark of a man!

Charles Eastman

Now will I rehearse before you a very ancient Breton Lay. As the tale was told to me, so, in turn, will I tell it over again, to the best of my art and knowledge. Hearken now to my story, its why and its reason.

Marie de France