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.

Luckily, my husband is my business partner as well as my life partner, so I never had to do the heavy lifting alone, literally or figuratively.

Josie Maran

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

Leo Tolstoy

Be your own politics, grow your own garden, and maybe you can help out more.

Rip Torn

You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some of it with you.

Joseph Joubert

I don't mind nothing happening in a book, but nothing happening in a phony way--characters saying things people never say, doing jobs that don't fit, the whole works--is simply asking too much of a reader. Something happening in a phony way must beat nothing happening in a phony way every time, right? I mean, you could prove that, mathematically, in an equation, and you can't often apply science to literature.

Nick Hornby

Failure too is a form of death...

Graham Greene

Think about what people are doing on Facebook today. They're keeping up with their friends and family, but they're also building an image and identity for themselves, which in a sense is their brand. They're connecting with the audience that they want to connect to. It's almost a disadvantage if you're not on it now.

Mark Zuckerberg

The only thing growing faster than the federal government's deficit is Chris Matthews' man-crush on Barack Obama.

Tim Pawlenty

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

There is no truth except the truth that exists within you. Everything else is what someone is telling you.

Neale Donald Walsch

I have decided to denounce communism, though I love the Communists. I don't find it to be right to preach the gospel without denouncing communism.

Richard Wurmbrand

You can't be unhappy in the middle of a big, beautiful river.

Jim Harrison