The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes,By the deep sea, and music in its roar:I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Lord (George Gordon) Byron, from

The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government-union-industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline.

Milton Friedman

We thought we were the only thinking beings in the universe, until we met you, but never did we dream that thought could arise from the lonely animals who cannot dream each other's dreams

Orson Scott Card

I love inventive food, but I want the classic dishes to taste like how I remember them. I get a little bummed out when there is too much fancy stuff going on and it doesn't resemble the original dish at all.

Drew Barrymore

To tell you the truth I am hard put to think of anyone who's career was affected significantly by making all those phone calls and I must be wrong. I must be wrong! Because it has just got to pay off!

Dabney Coleman

I understood that all the material of a literary work was in my past life, I understood that I had acquired it in the midst of frivolous amusements, in idleness, in tenderness and in pain, stored up by me without my divining its destination or even its survival, as the seed has in reserve all the ingredients which will nourish the plant.

Marcel Proust

Research is of considerable importance in certain fields, such as science and history.

Fred Saberhagen

In the middle ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.

Robert Runcie

The strength of any weakness within us is the degree to which it is feared.

Guy Finley

The GAO just released a report that said 22 percent of federal programs fail to meet their objectives. The truth is we don't know how taxpayer money is spent in Washington, D.C., which is why I think we ought to put every agency budget up on the Internet for everyone to see.

Carly Fiorina

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

Robert Kennedy

Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.

Jim Rohn