Whoever serves his country well has no need of ancestors.

People are always angry at America. They're absolutely certain that America either caused their problems or is deliberately not fixing their problems. But the anger is always directed at America and never at Americans.

P. J. O'Rourke

The meeting in the open of two dogs, strangers to each other, is one of the most painful, thrilling, and pregnant of all conceivable encounters; it is surrounded by an atmosphere of the last canniness, presided over by a constraint for which I have no precise name; they simply cannot pass each other, their mutual embarrassment is frightful to behold.

Thomas Mann

What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common....

Stephen King

In most of mankind gratitude is merely a secret hope for greater favours.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

That which is really beautiful has no need of anything; not more than law, not more than truth, not more than benevolence or modesty.

Marcus Aurelius

It is said that for money you can have everything, but you cannot. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; knowledge but not wisdom; glitter, but not beauty; fun, but not joy; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; leisure, but not peace. You can have the husk of everything for money, but not the kernel.

Arne Garborg

I was delighted to have lines when they came - learning lines for film isn't a problem, but television is a little different, because we shot those shows the whole way through.

David Selby

These are the soul's changes. I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism.

Virginia Woolf

Offered a job as book critic for magazine as a young man, Bellow had been interviewed by Chambers and asked to give his opinion about William Wordsworth. Replying perhaps too quickly that Wordsworth had been a Romantic poet, he had been brusquely informed by Chambers that there was no place for him at the magazine. Bellow had often wondered, he told us, what he ought to have said. I suggested that he might have got the job if he'd replied that Wordsworth was a once-revolutionary poet who later became a conservative and was denounced by Browning and others as a turncoat. This seemed to Bellow to be probably right. More interesting was the related question: What if he'd that job?

Christopher Hitchens

All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful: but the beauty is grim.

Christopher Morley

Since ever the world was spinningAnd till the world shall endYou've your man in the beginningOr you have him in the end,But to have him from start to finishAnd neither nor borrow nor lendIs what all of the girls are wantingAnd none of the gods can send

L.M. Montgomery

What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours.

James Lovelock