I think more than writers, the major influences on me have been European movies, jazz, and Abstract Expressionism.

What if Barack Obama established a Presidential Advisory Committee that would meet once every couple of months, bringing together the former presidents for a conference in order to seek their collective wisdom? There is a wealth of experience in former presidents that generally goes untapped.

Tony Campolo

The clever way death cuts us down, but makes it look like just a thinning-out. Generations never fall with one blow - that would be too sad and too obvious. Death prefers to do it piecemeal. The meadow is attacked from several sides at the same time. One of us goes one day; another some time afterwards; you have to stand back and look around you to take in what's missing, to grasp the vast slaughter of your generation...

Alphonse Daudet, Adapted from Ju

People with fertility problems are not alone. It is a very very common problem for couples today. I've seen statistics that are just staggering.

Michael Zaslow

I have grown into a Bestsellasaurus Rex -- a big, stumbling book-beast that is loved when it shits money and hated when it tramples houses... I started out as a storyteller; along the way I became an economic force.

Stephen King

The quality of life is determined by its activities.

Aristotle

All mystics speak the same language, for they come from the same country.

Louis Claude de St. Martin

A good artist should be isolated. If he isn't isolated, something is wrong.

Orson Welles

The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the Press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.

Octavio Paz

Complete strangers can stand silent next to each other in an elevator and not even look each other in the eye. But at a concert, those same strangers could find themselves dancing and singing together like best friends. That's the power of music.

LZ Granderson

The minute a person whose word means a great deal to others dare to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

Marian Anderson

What will we do in a globalised world? All human beings are equal, so they have the same right to have the same lifestyle-the same social security, jobs, education.

Joschka Fischer

Nothing in my life would mean anything if you weren't here to share it. There'd be no reason to get up in the morning without you to light the sun with your smile.

Maggie Osborne