Witness also that when we talk about literature, we do so in the present tense. When we speak of the dead, we are not so kind.

God continues to work miracles in my life.

Willie Aames

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.

James Baldwin

In The Touch, the love scenes are the same as they were in The Thorn Birds or anything else I've ever written. I find a way of saying that either it was heaven or hell but in a way that still leaves room for the reader to use their own imagination.

Colleen McCullough

If it weren't for greed, intolerance, hate, passion and murder, you would have no works of art, no great buildings, no medical science, no Mozart, no Van Gough, no Muppets and no Louis Armstrong.

Jasper Fforde

Think of and look at your work as though it were done by your enemy. I you look at it to admire it, you are lost.

Samuel Butler

In the beginning man was poor, then along came Cosmic Ordering.

Stephen Richards

The truth is always modern and there never comes a time when it is safe to give it voice.

Clarence Darrow

This year, as we celebrate the 230th anniversary of America's independence, please remember the symbols that are sacred to this country. Fly Old Glory high and show your respect and admiration for this great nation and the values we hold dear.

Kenny Marchant

Who is so deaf or so blind as he that willfully will neither hear nor see?

English Proverb

Ideally a painter (and, generally, an artist) should not become conscious of his insights: without taking the detour through his reflective processes, and incomprehensibly to himself, all his progress should enter so swiftly into the work that he is unable to recognize them in the moment of transition. Alas, the artist who waits in ambush there, watching, detaining them, will find them transformed like the beautiful gold in the fairy tale which cannot remain gold because some small detail was not taken care of.

Rainer Maria Rilke

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

J. William Fulbright

A metaphysician is one who, when you remark that twice two makes four, demands to know what you mean by twice, what by two, what by makes, and what by four. For asking such questions metaphysicians are supported in oriental luxury in the universities, and respected as educated and intelligent men.

H. L. Mencken