If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend

Covenants, without the sword, are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all. The bonds of words are too weak to bridle man's ambition, avarice, anger, and other passions, without the fear of some coercive power.

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1660

I care about the connection with the audience. Film is such a powerful medium. Movies can change the way people think.

Nicolas Cage

Our solution on 'The Simpsons' is to do jokes that people who have an education, or some frame of reference, can get. And for the ones who don't, it doesn't matter, because we have Homer banging his head and saying, 'D'oh!'

Matt Groening

Where faith is there is courage, there is fortitude, there is steadfastness and strength... Faith bestows that sublime courage that rises superior to the troubles and disappointments of life, that acknowledges no defeat except as a step to victory; that is strong to endure, patient to wait, and energetic to struggle... Light up, then, the lamp of faith in your heart... It will lead you safely through the mists of doubt and the black darkness of despair; along the narrow, thorny ways of sickness and sorrow, and over the treacherous places of temptation and uncertainty.

James Allen

I'm married. My wife, Stella - a beautiful woman. She's brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.

Anthony Hopkins

If you think I'm going to let six people risk their lives - !''because it's the first time for all of us,' said Ron.'This is different, pretending to be me -''Well, none of us really fancy it, Harry,' said Fred earnestly. 'Imagine if something went wrong and we were stuck as specky, scrawny gits forever.'Harry did not smile. 'You can't do it if I don't cooperate, you need me to give you some hair.''Well, that's the plan scuppered,' said George. 'Obviously there's no chance at all of us getting a bit of your hair unless you cooperate.''Yeah, thirteen of us against one bloke who's not allowed to use magic; we've got no chance,' said Fred.

J.K. Rowling

Murder is terribly exhausting.

Albert Camus

I did not compose my work as one might put on a church vestment... rather it sprung from the truly fervent faith of my heart, such as I have felt it since my childhood.

Franz Liszt

I think many of my books, including 'Handle with Care,' including 'My Sister's Keeper,' circle back to how far are we willing to go for the people we love? I think love changes the way we think. It's the thing that takes you out of what your normal set of beliefs would be.

Jodi Picoult

It is better to be unhappy in love than unhappy in marriage, but some people manage to be both.

Guy de Maupassant

Patience has its limits. Take it too far, and it's cowardice.

George Jackson

no disease suffered by a live man can be known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to medicine -- not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best years of their lives on that business. But above all that thought was kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really useful [...] Their usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible because they were given in small doses) but they were useful, necessary, and indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and those who loved her -- and that is why there are, and always will be, pseudo-healers, wise women, homoeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering.

Leo Tolstoy