This week, the world gathers in Beijing for the 2008 Olympic games. This is the extraordinary moment China has been dreaming of for 100 years. People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China's relationship with the outside world.

But I pine in Solitude. Solitude is my undoing.

Virginia Woolf

No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, and disciplined.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

Frankly, I was horrified by life, at what a man had to do simply in order to eat, sleep, and keep himself clothed. So I stayed in bed and drank. When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.

Charles Bukowski

Hank, when people call people nerds mostly what they're saying is,'You like stuff'.

John Green

I've been all over the world. I love New York, I love Paris, San Francisco, so many places. But there's no place like New Orleans. It's got the best food. It's got the best music. It's got the best people. It's got the most fun stuff to do.

Harry Connick, Jr.

lover can be taken but love never

Anonymous

Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.

Terry Pratchett

People are naming it the Third Wave, the Information Age, etc. but I would say those are basically technological descriptions, and this next shift is not about technology - although obviously it will be influenced and in some cases expressed by technologies.

Paul Hawken

You may be confident that if something is necessary for the carrying out of His will in your life, God is ready to give itIf they [desires] are not mere whims to bring only momentary satisfaction or glory to us but are rather true desires to accomplish more good and live more fully to His glory, then it will be in accordance with His will. Only a careful searching of your heart can allow you to know the motivation that prompts your prayer.

John Bisagno

Man dies of cold, not of darkness.

Miguel de Unamuno

The conflict between the men who make and the men who report the news is as old as time. News may be true, but it is not truth, and reporters and officials seldom see it the same way. In the old days, the reporters or couriers of bad news were often put to the gallows; now they are given the Pulitzer Prize, but the conflict goes on.

James Reston

People ask me how I do research for my science fiction. The answer is, I never do any research.

Frederik Pohl