Think of something useless, and that's probably what I'll be doing. Listen, Virginia, we need to love the useless. We need to raise pigeons without a thought of eating them, plant rose bushes without expecting to pick roses, write without aiming at publication. We need to do things without expecting benefits in return. The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but it's in the curving paths that the best things are found. . . . We must love the useless, because there is beauty in uselessness.

What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.

Hermann Hesse

Virtually every writer I know would rather be a musician.

Kurt Vonnegut

Nothing is unthinkable, nothing impossible to the balanced person, provided it comes out of the needs of life and is dedicated to life's further development

Lewis Mumford

If, on occasion, the knowledge brought by science leads to an unhappy end, this is not to the discredit of science but is rather an indication of an imperfect ability to use wisely the gifts placed within our hands.

Polykarp Kusch

My movies just kind of sneak up on you. I don't have to worry too much about what everybody is going to say. Anyway, I really don't pay attention to what the world says about my movies. I just care about what my buddies think.

Adam Sandler

A man should keep for himself a little back shop, all his own, quite unadulterated, in which he establishes his true freedom and chief place of seclusion and solitude.

Michel de Montaigne, Essais

Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars. Cimourdain was full of virtues and truth, but they shine out of a dark background.

Victor Hugo

Here is the piece. If you can't say fornicate can you say copulate or if not that can you say co-habit? If not that would have to say consummate I suppose. Use your own good taste and judgment.

Ernest Hemingway

Islam is a peaceful religion.

Youssou N'Dour

The prosperity of right is that it is always beautiful and pure.

Victor Hugo

Very few conflicts in the history of the world have been satisfactorily concluded according to a published timetable, because you lose all flexibility in dealing with your opponents.

William Hague

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe