“Not all those who wander are lost”.
-- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord Of The Rings: Fellowship Of The Ring

"Joan Rivers is on a manhunt. The clothes-conscious comic recently signed up for jdate.com, the Jewish online dating service. 'I wouldn't give my real name,' Rivers told the Los Angeles Times. 'I just said I was a successful writer. I didn't want to post my picture, so I tried to use a photo of Nicole Kidman with a line through it, but they wouldn't accept it.' Rivers says she's desperate to meet a heterosexual hunk: 'I can't stand another minute with a gay man,' she whined."
-- Page Six, in the New York Post, today.

"I think the actions of the president yesterday, which are, you know, in my opinion, the most vile and hateful words ever spoken by a single president in my opinion. I am stunned, and I am horrified."
-- Rosie O'Donnell, on President's Bush's vow to destroy the instituting of gay marriage.

"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
-- Dan Quayle

"In an effort to improve the image of the pit bull, New York City has officially changed the dog's name to "New Yorkies." I propose that we Crabs try a similar experiment. Isn't it time we try shedding our linguistic connection with the killer disease? How about if for the next three weeks we call our sign "Thunderbird" or "Quantum Flux" or "Vanquisher" instead of "Cancer"? Let's see if it stimulates subtle changes in the way we think about ourselves. It's the perfect time to try it. We're currently in an astrological phase when we have maximum power to transcend limitations."
-- Robert Brezny, Free Will Astrology

"Shaking hands. I think it's a terrible custom. One of the worst. It's been proven you can get colds and flu and everything else. Unfortunately, it's a modern-day necessity. I prefer the Japanese method"
-- Donald Trump. In an interview with Reed Tucker in Time Out New York.

"I don't care what is written about me as long as it isn't true."
-- Katherine Hepburn

"Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who did not hear the music."
-- Angela Monet

"Character is much easier kept than recovered."
-- Thomas Paine

"I just say to the president... Come out and meet with the three-plus thousand couples that have committed themselves to one another, committed to a long-term loving relationship with equal status, the same status that he and his wife are afforded. And recognize the spirit and the pride that comes with that."
-- Mayor Gavin Newsom, the man behind San Francisco's week-old policy allowing same-sex marriages, as quoted in The New York Times.

"You can fool too many people too much of the time."
-- James Thurber

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself”.
-- George Bernard Shaw

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company. "
-- George Washington

“Dream as though you’ll live for ever; live as though you’ll die today”.
-- James Dean

"Dream on it. Let your mind take you to places you would like to go . . . think about it and plan it and celebrate the possibilities. And don't listen to anyone who doesn't know how to dream. Anything is possible in this world. I really believe that."
-- Liza Minnelli

"This is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way".
-- Doris Lessing

"I think that [Mayor Bloomberg] has decided that he can't improve the schools, so why not try and create the teachers as a scapegoat."
-- Randi Weingarten, President, United Federation of Teachers on the City's offer yesterday of an eight page contract without any of the job protections previously negotiated in good faith by New York City.

"I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves."
-- August Strindberg

"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole".
-- Roger Caras

"In the not-too-distant future, the only people who will want to see the old shows are boomers who spent their youth lip-synching to the original cast recording of "Hello, Dolly!" in the rec room while everybody else was outside playing baseball."
-- Michael Reidel, New York Post

"For those of us who lived through Vietnam, the parallels to the situation in Iraq today are startling. Every day we are beginning to hear about a soldier lost here and a soldier lost there. Ever-mounting civilian deaths. The government estimates a four-year stay. And always, there is the lingering question, 'Now tell me why we went there again?'"
-- Marianne Williamson, Questions About Iraq War Create Moral Outrage, The Detroit News

"Confusion is the beginning of wisdom".
-- Socrates

"If you can't convince them, confuse them."
-- Harry Truman

"George Bush seems as unbeatable as any unbeatable incumbent has ever been... While there are lots of people who would like to believe they can passionately will this not to be true, the main premise of this election is a deep fatalism about the inevitability of George Bush. Nothing short of cataclysm would appear to be able to dislodge him. Such a stoic sense of reality makes the primaries ?the upset in Iowa last week, the attempt to regain footing in New Hampshire this week ?seem something like fantasy baseball and the people out in Iowa and New Hampshire like quaint hobbyists (if not weird cultists)...
The preposterous rise of Howard Dean was the initial reaction to the Bush lock: What do we have to lose? Let?s be bold?. The backlash against Dean, the second: What have we done here? We?re not just going to be creamed, we?re going to be a laughingstock."
-- Michael Wolff, New York Magazine

"I will never engage in a winter sport with an ambulance parked at bottom of the hill."
-- Erma Bombeck

"I can't shut my eyes, I'm afraid of the dark."
-- Steve Taylor

"Most people think I've been in the witness protection program."
-- Jack Paar, 1918-2004, from The New York Times

"Everyone thinks Ed Sullivan discovered the Beatles. That's not true. I had them on before he did. I did it because I thought they were funny, not because I liked the music. I'm a Muzak kind of guy — my home's like living in an elevator."
-- Jack Paar, 1918-2004, from The New York Times

"I stay driven 'cause there's nowhere to park..."
-- Steve Taylor

"Nietzche is dead."
-- God

"God is dead."
-- Nietzche

"Play is the work of children. It's very serious stuff. And if it's properly structured in a developmental program, children can blossom."
-- Bob Keeshan, Captain Kangaroo, 1927-2004

"I made it with my lucky legs, my mother, and a lot of backbreaking hard work."
-- Ann Miller, 1923-2004, as quoted by Playbill

"Why do blessings wear disguises? If I were a blessing, I'd run around naked!"
-- Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo on The Golden Girls.

"Where are you going to get the jury pool from, Mars?"
-- Judy Leon, of Bowne DecisionQuest, a litigation advisory firm, regarding Martha Stewart's trial which begins Jury Selection today in Lower Manhattan. In the New York Times.

"Dr. [Martin Luther] King invoked God-given and constitutional rights in defense of extending civil rights to every man. He believed in his country's distinct ability to maintain a steadfast commitment to its values even when institutional realities pointed in other directions. Dr. King personified the American creed. That it was Ronald Reagan who bestowed on Dr. King the honor of a national holiday should no longer come as a surprise."
-- Kiron K. Skinner, assistant professor of history and political science at Carnegie Mellon University, and member of the Defense Policy Board, in The New York Times.

"If you obey all the rules... you miss all the fun."
-- Katharine Hepburn

"The sad thing about puppetry is that people think it's just for kids. They bring along their infants and toddlers nowadays so that the puppeteer will jiggle their dollies. It's frustrating as an artist and has caused many people to flee the profession."
-- Unknown, from Puppetry and Links.

"I work at the Palace Ballroom,
But gee, that Palace is cheap.
When I get back to my chilly apartment
I'm much too tired to sleep.

I'm one of those lady teachers,
A beautiful hostess, you know.
The kind the Palace features
At exactly a dime a throw.

Ten cents a dance,
That's what they pay me,
Gosh, how they wear me down!
Ten cents a dance,
Pansies and rough guys,
Tough guys who tear my gown.

Seven to midnight I hear drums,
Loudly the saxophone blows,
Trumpets are breaking my eardrums,
Customers crush my toes.

Sometimes I think I've found my hero,
But it's a queer old man.
All that you need is a ticket:
Come on, Big Boy, ten cents a dance!

Fighters and sailors and bowlegged tailors
Can pay for a ticket and rent me!
Butchers and barbers and rats from the harbor
And sweethearts my good luck has sent me!

Though I've a chorus of elderly beaus,
Stockings are porous with holes in the toes!
I'm dead at closing time!
Dance, sounding merry, it's only a dime!

(Refrain)"

-- Lorenz Hart, Lyricist, Ten Cents A Dance as sung by Ruth Etting, in 1930.

"The Buddha could accomplish the enlightened mind because its very nature was already there. That is why buddhahood—enlightenment—is possible. If there were no no such nature or potential, it would be impossible".
-- Dalai Lama, Imagine All The People, from the book Daily Wisdom: 365 Buddhist Inspirations, as quoted on Human Bacon.

"Deterioration is offset by a deeper sense of gratitude"
-- Diane Keaton, on the subject of aging

"Santorum: Pronunciation: san-TOR-um
Function: noun
Etymology: Savage Love - 05/29/03
1. The frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."
-- Dan Savage, of Savage Love

"In a relationship, there can be a lot of fun in fantasy. You can play the strong one or the little boy or the manly man who grabs a chick by the hair and drags her to the bedroom. I've always been such a strong kind of guy, I like playing the innocent more often."
-- Patrick Swayze, telling reporter Andrew Goldman in Elle, as quoted by Liz Smith today.

"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
-- Thomas Edison

"If I had my life to live over again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner."
-- Tallulah Bankhead

"Come off it, Martha!"
Paul Lynde, The Paul Lynde Show

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time."
-- Sir John Lubbock

"If you want to see my penis, you’ll have to fly to Britain... It does amuse me, the horrific violence that comes out of American cinema. But someone's cock is too much... If I'd blown away 5,000 people with a semiautomatic machine gun, that would be fine. But I showed my penis."
-- Ewan McGregor, on his disappointment with Sony Classics on editing out a scene that showed full frontal nudity from the U.S. release of Young Adam, in Premiere Magazine. (Interested readers should know that McGregor's penis is also on display in Trainspotting and Velvet Goldmine.) As quoted on Cinema Eye.

If blindness is a limitation,
it is so in quite the same way
as innumerable other characteristics
to which human flesh is heir
-- Kenneth Jernigan, Blindness: Handicap or Characteristic

"Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health,
happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends
feel there is something in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think
only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as
enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your won. Forget
the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the
future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that
you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too
noble for anger."
-- Christian D. Larson, Creed for Optimists

"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk... I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way.... "The Lord has just blessed him... I mean, he could make terrible mistakes and comes out of it. It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him."
-- Pat Robertson on the 700 Club.

"Maybe Pat got a message from Karl Rove and thought it was from God."
-- Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

"You have the possibility of playing two different roles that many people imagine are incompatible. Who cares what they think? You can definitely go both ways without being either a contradiction or a fake."
-- Robert Brezny, Real Astrology

"...I invite you to do the following ritual to mark this date in history and powerfully choose to give up the old for the new. Begin by making a list of all that you are willing to let go of. Write down all the thoughts, behaviors, excuses, fears or justifications that have stopped you in the past. Then look over that list and see how all of it has served you. Be willing to receive the gifts of your past actions, for hidden within them is vital wisdom that can be used as fuel to propel you toward the future you desire. After you have extracted these lessons and blessed all that is on your list, find a way to dispose of it. You can burn it (but make sure you do it in a very safe way), bury it, tear it up, or wrap it in some nice paper and throw it away."
-- Debbie Ford

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind?/ Should auld acquaintance be forgot/And auld lang syne. For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne/We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne. We two have run about the braes, And put the gowans fine/But we've wandered many a weary foot, Since auld lang syne.
We two have paddled in the burn/From morning sun till dine/But seas between us braid have roared, Since auld lang syne. And there's a hand, my trusty friend/And gives a hand o thine/And we'll take a right guide-willie waught/For auld lang syne. And surely you'll be your pint-stowp/And surely I'll be mine/And we'll take a cup of kindness yet/For auld lang syne."
-- Robert Burns

"Help me to be aware of the many blessings which are mine. Often we chase what we think we desire and in so doing miss what You are trying to give us."
-- Renaissance Unity, a meditation.

"Just do your job, plus a little bit more"
-- George W. Stockman, on how to succeed with an employer for a long range career without ever elevating their expections by your overachieving.

"The tourists are back... For the last few weeks, they have packed the streets of Midtown Manhattan like a motley invading army, tilting their heads back to gaze at the skyscrapers and filling the air with a broken music of French and Bengali, Slovak and Texan... Official statistics are hard to come by. But for the last week, more than 1,000 tourists a day have been dropping by NYC & Company's Visitor Information Center, a level not reached since before Sept. 11, 2001, a spokeswoman said... 'We have been seeing the numbers we used to see,' she added. 'It's like a new beginning.'
-- Robert F. Worth, The Tourists Are Back in New York, in Case You Haven't Noticed
The New York Times

"Believe it or not, it may be helping us because it's driving people to drink."
-- Matthew Maher, owner of McSorley's Old Ale House, on New York's ban on smoking, as quoted by The New York Times.

"The great lesson from the true mystics is that the sacred is in the ordinary, that it is to be found in one's daily life, in one's neighbors, friends, and family, in one's back yard." So said psychologist Abraham Maslow. Of course that's always true, but in 2004 it will be far more true for you than ever before. You won't have to travel to exotic paradises to drum up life-changing epiphanies, Cancerian. You won't have to hunt for miracles in all-night revels at the edge of reality. All the amazement you'll need will glide right up to you while you're washing dishes or taking a walk or buying peanut butter."
-- Rob Brezny, Real Astrology

"Joy comes not through possession or ownership, but through a wise and loving heart... "
-- Buddha

"We have to take pleasure seriously."
-- Charles Eames

"Before the beginning, after the great war between heaven and hell, God created the earth and gave dominion over it to the crafty ape he called man. And to each generation was born a creature of light and a creature of darkness.
And great armies clashed by night in the ancient war between good and evil. There was magic then, nobility, and unimaginable cruelty. And so it was until the day that a false sun exploded over Trinity. And man forever traded away wonder for reason."
-- Michael J. Anderson as Samson in Carnivale.

"He's a good boy... I raised him good, and so I'm not too worried about other things that's happened."
-- Joe Jackson, on his son, Michael Jackson

"New York has the lowest overall crime rate among cities with more than one million people, according to their presentation of the preliminary Uniform Crime Report compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the first half of the year.

Crime dropped 7.4 percent in New York City, the statistics show, compared with 3.1 percent in the nation as a whole, and 4.4 percent in cities with a population greater than a million. The murder rate was up slightly in New York, as it was nationwide, but the city's rate was still far below its peak in 1990.

The city's crime index, a figure adjusted for population, is on par with much smaller cities, like Ann Arbor, Mich., and ranks 194th out of 200 cities with more than 100,000 residents, making it one of the safest."
-- Shaila K. Dewan, The New York Times

"He was just caught like a rat."
-- U.S. Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno on the capture of Saddam Hussein, at a news conference in Tikrit.

"I'd like to thank all of you heteerosexuals... it takes two of you to make one of me."
-- Boy George

"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."
-- Walter Bagehot

"Good to begin well. Better to end well."
-- Fortune Cookie

"Only the shallow know themselves."
-- Oscar Wilde

"What happened is that when I was in Afghanistan and Iraq, speaking with a lot of our soldiers, who I think are doing an extraordinary job under dangerous and difficult circumstances, they asked me on one particular occasion, `Well, you know, what do people think of us and what we're doing back home?'... I'm not going to lie to an American soldier, particularly a soldier in the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, New York... And what I said is: `I think you have universal support among the American people. They cannot be prouder of you. And there are questions being raised about the administration's policies.' "
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

"I thank God I was raised Catholic, so sex will always be dirty."
-- John Waters

"In the most famous picture from his trip to Baghdad, President
Bush had
himself artfully photographed to look like he was serving turkey to the
troops. The image was emblazoned on front pages throughout the country -
and
now appears to be an entirely false depiction.

According to the Washington Post, Bush was actually holding "a
decoration,
not a serving plate." In other words, he was holding a prop, not
real food,
and thus only pretending for the cameras to be serving up the holiday
meal.

The Post notes that "the foray has opened new credibility questions
for a
White House that has dealt with issues" like this in the past. In
fact, the
flap marks the second such distortion in as many days about his trip to
Baghdad. Just yesterday it was revealed that the White House's tall tale
of
Air Force One crossing paths with a British Airways plane was entirely
false.

The deceptive picture also harkens back to the controversy surrounding
the
President's "Mission Accomplished" banner. On May 1, he stood
on the deck of
the U.S.S. Lincoln in front of the giant sign and declared that
"major
combat operations have ended." Since that time, more troops have
been killed
or wounded than before he made that statement, prompting more questions
about his photo-op.

When asked why he chose to stand in front of the "Mission
Accomplished"
banner at a press conference six months later, Bush "disavowed the
background banner," saying the White House staff had nothing to do
with
producing it. But then Navy and administration officials admitted the
President had been dishonest, saying that "the White House actually
made
it." White House spokesman Scott McClellan specifically said,
"We took care
of the production of it. We have people to do those things."

Of course, Bush's penchant for taking misleading and dishonest photos
has
not been confined to Iraq. In July of 2002, the President visited a
low-income housing development in Atlanta to tout his commitment to
funding
it. He then proposed a budget that eliminated its funding. Similarly, the
President visited a Boys and Girls Club in January of 2003 to tout the
organization's efforts. He said the club "has got a grand history of
helping children."
Just four days after his photo-op, he proposed to cut 15% out of funding
for the Boys and Girls Club."

-- The Daily Mislead, online.

"There is nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of your own sex. People should be very free with sex, they should draw the line at goats."
-- Elton John

"A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin."
-- H.L. Mencken

''Eat a lobster, eat a pound of caviar - live! If you are in love with a beautiful blonde with an empty face and no brains at all, don't be afraid. Marry her! Live!''
-- Arthur Rubenstein

"He's a good boy... I raised him good, and so I'm not too worried about other things that's happened."
-- Joe Jackson, father of Michael Jackson.

"I was just looking for a warm meal somewhere."
-- George W. Bush

"I love Thanksgiving turkey...it's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger

"Consider the Americans who have rained nothing but glory on our nation. Think about the magnificent works of Walt Whitman, James Baldwin and Hart Crane. They're just a handful of writers who shaped the American vision and yet could not achieve full citizenship because they were homosexual. How many wedding parties have walked down the aisle to the music of Virgil Thompson, Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman or Aaron Copland? Yes, we get to provide the music, but we are not allowed to get married ourselves. The next time you stand, hand on your heart, and sing "America the Beautiful," remind yourself that we owe those towering words to Katharine Lee Bates, a lesbian.

Remind yourself, too, of the Rev. Mychal F. Judge, the fire department chaplain who was killed on September 11. There was hardly a religious leader in our city who did not glorify his name and hold him up as someone to emulate. But remind them that he was a proud and openly gay man and those same moralists will turn their backs in denial.

The unhappy tradition continues today. The Bush administration spends billions spreading freedom abroad while at home it devises legislation to deny equal rights to gays and lesbians. What is it with you people, anyway? Are you so insecure about the way you handle marriage that you're scared gay folk will show you up? Trust me, we will make as much of a mess out of matrimony as you do. Just give us a chance."
-- Harvey Fierstein in The New York Times.

“If 10 percent of men are gay, then it’s a reasonable assumption that 10 percent of priests and 10 percent of bishops are gay, but it is what you do about it. If they are living a celibate life, then God bless the men.”
-- Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of Glasgow, Scotland, on homosexuality in the Times of London, Oct. 1)

"As Matt Dillon's underwear."
-- Boy George, when asked by US Weekly what he would like to become if he were reincarnated.

''Lies run sprints, but the truth runs marathons."
-- Michael Jackson

"Of all the post-Sept. 11 denials of civil liberties, the enemy combatant doctrine is among the worst. It gives the president untrammeled authority to lock up Americans merely by asserting that they are part of a terrorist plot. In its argument to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit this week, the government insisted that military-style rules like the enemy combatant doctrine now apply to American citizens, even on American soil, because Al Qaeda has "made the battlefield the United States."

Governments are always tempted to detain perceived enemies without charges, hold them incommunicado and deny them counsel. But the framers of the Constitution knew that if the government was allowed to act on those impulses, the result would be tyranny. That is why they built into this nation's founding document the very rights the Bush administration is intent on taking away."
-- Editorial, 'Enemy Combatant' Sham, The New York Times

"My only hope is that we never lose sight
of one thing, that it was all started by a mouse."
-- Walt Disney, (Today is Mickey's 75th Birthday)

"I belong in the theater... I have to work off the instant reactions of the audience."
-- Dorothy Loudon, 1933-2003, as quoted in The New York Times.

"I'm proud and grateful I was Blondie... She was dumb and shrewish sometimes. But she was real and sympathetic and warm, a real woman, a human being. And that's how I tried to play her."
-- Penny Singleton, 1908-2003, quoted in a 1973 book titled Saturday Afternoon at the Bijou, and quoted by the Associated Press in their obituary for her.

"I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different."
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau

"You Simonize your car, so why not your face?"
-- Joan Rivers as quoted by the New York Post

"Hello, Ralpie Boy!!!"
-- Art Carney, 1918-2003.

"President Bush often emphasizes his commitment to veterans, saying in 2001, "My administration understands America's obligations not only go to those who wear the uniform today, but to those who wore the uniform in the past: to our veterans.

But the 200,000 veterans waiting six months or more for their first appointment at a VA facility would be denied access to VA health care under Bush's plan. Others would be charged $250 annual enrollment fees, doubled prescription costs and increased co-payments."
-- The Daily Mislead, MoveOn.org

''They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government - toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' - than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America.''
-- Al Gore, in a speech for Moveon.org

"The Bush crowd hurtled into Baghdad on the law of Disney: Wishing can make it so. Now they're ensnared in the law of the jungle: the rules of engagement don't apply with this scary cocktail of Saddam loyalists, foreign fighters and terrorists, who hold nothing sacrosanct, not human rights organizations, humanitarian groups or Iraqi civilians.

The gangsters are getting ever bolder about picking off our soldiers on land and out of the sky. With three Army helicopters hit in the last two weeks, killing 22 Americans, soldiers are reduced to flying low and fast, as they scan for the glint of sunlight coming off the rockets of the invisible guerrillas. It's an eerie flashback to the 10-year war of attrition Afghans waged against the mighty Soviets, when worn-down Soviet soldiers complained that the Afghan fighters were "ghosts" who would shoot down their helicopters with American Stinger surface-to-air missiles and fade back into the mountains."
-- Maureen Dowd, The Chicago Way, The New York Times.

"The lingering question, as it is so often with Mr. Bush, is how quickly and fully the rhetoric will translate into action. The president's "Marshall Plan" for Afghanistan never materialized; his ambitious "road map" for an Israeli-Palestinian peace didn't get past the first stop sign. A policy to promote democracy in the Middle East, even if defined as the work of decades, will require not just soaring speeches but far-reaching changes in U.S. practices and substantial costs. Though the administration has already been talking about the new strategy for many months, there has been no substantial follow-up so far -- other than a start on a new democratic political system for Iraq."
-- Editorial, The Wasington Post

"Those deaths brought to 382 the number of American soldiers who have died in Iraq or Kuwait since the United States invaded Iraq on March 19."
-- The New York Times, today.

"If he gets more explicit, or allows the flag-draped coffins of fallen heroes to be photographed coming home, it will just remind people that the administration said this would be easy, and it's teeth-grindingly hard. And that the administration vowed to get Osama and Saddam and W.M.D., and hasn't. And that the Bush team that hyped the presence of Al Qaeda in Iraq has now created an Al Qaeda presence in Iraq. And that there was no decent plan for the occupation or for financing one, no plan for rotating or supporting troops stretched too thin to guard ammunition caches or police a fractious society, and no plan for getting out."
-- Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

"It's clearly a tragic day for America. In a long, hard war, we're going to have tragic days. But they're necessary. They're part of a war that's difficult and complicated."
-- Donald H. Rumsfeld, the US secretary of defense, after guerrillas shot down an American helicopter in Iraq, killing 16 soldiers in The New York Times yesterday.

“If 10 percent of men are gay, then it’s a reasonable assumption that 10 percent of priests and 10 percent of bishops are gay, but it is what you do about it. If they are living a celibate life, then God bless the men.”
-- Cardinal Keith O’Brien, archbishop of Glasgow, Scotland, on homosexuality as reported by the Times of London, Oct. 1 and quoted by the New York Blade.

“Jeers to Barbara Walters. Interviewing Macaulay Culkin, who plays a gay, drug-abusing murderer and mutilator in his latest movie [‘Party Monster’], Walters asked, ‘Are you concerned that people may think you’re gay?’ No word on whether Mac is worried about the murder and mutilation part.”
-- Cheers and Jeers, column in TV Guide, Oct. 4, as quoted by the New York Blade.

"Work hard. Play hard. Stay hard."
-- Unknown