"I feel like crying... Because there's no way in the world that a guy with my name from South St. Louis, Missouri, ends up in Radio City holding one of these without some divine intervention."
-- Norbert Leo Butz, at last night's Tony Awards.


Image from Broadway World.

"I've never been proposed to or engaged. Never, never, never. Not even close. I've never been an active partner seeker".
-- Renee Zellweger


Image from American Photo.

"Change the way you look at things and the things you look at will change..."
-- Dr. Wayne Dyer, The Power of Intention.


Image from the NAEB.

"Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results."
-- Rollo May

"We can't relate to the rest of the world only through a negative prism, and only through telling them to do things. Why? Because if you live in a world where you can't kill, jail or occupy all your enemies, security will never be enough. You've got to make a world where you've got more friends and fewer enemies, where you make partners."

-- Bill Clinton, as quoted by The Washington Post.


Image from DHM.

"Discontent occurs when our outer experiences aren't matching our inner desires. It usually begins as a subtle awareness - a gnawing feeling that we are capable of something more than we are actually creating in some key area of our lives or we are tolerating circumstances that are below our standards. In its early stages, discontent is fairly easy to overlook or conceal from ourselves. But like a glowing ember, the heat of discontent builds slowly over time until it becomes a blazing fire that can no longer be ignored. By then our discontent captures our full attention and, hopefully, we are motivated into action...

"Whether it shows up in the area of our jobs, our bodies, or our relationships with our spouse or our kids, the sensation of discontent blows past our egos and our logic, insisting that we are destined for much, much more than we are currently living. The natural human reaction when faced with such a powerful and uncomfortable emotion is to blame it on someone or something else in order to ease our own pain... But I'd like to offer you another, more empowering way to perceive it: Your discontent is a tap on the shoulder from your most magnificent self, awakening you to your true potential and revealing a part of yourself that is ready to be expressed. In fact, discontent may be your most powerful ally on your journey to a life of greater fulfillment.

"What if you listened to the subtle urgings of your discontent, rather than making it someone else's fault or keeping it at bay? What if you could penetrate the denial of your own actions and choices and took radical responsibility for where you are right now? What if you not only listened to your discontent, but courted it, took it to lunch or out for an afternoon stroll and received full-heartedly the messages it is trying to convey? What you will inevitably find is that your discontent is ushering in a more expanded, more powerful version of yourself that is wanting and waiting to be born. It is the proverbial messenger whispering in your ear...

"Once we crack the code of our discontent and receive the message it has been trying to send us, we can embrace it, and move in the direction it is guiding us...

"This week, look to see in what area(s) of your life your discontent is trying to get your attention, and create a structure that will enable you to grow with it, rather than fight against it..."

-- Debbie Ford, DebbieFord.com

"Failure is not a single cataclysmic event. We do not fail overnight. Failure is the inevitable result of an accumulation of poor thinking and poor choices. To put it more simply, failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgement repeated every day."
-- Jim Rohn, Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle.

"The purpose of all war is peace".
-- St. Augustine.

"For many, negative thinking is a habit, which over time, becomes an addiction. A lot of people suffer from this disease because negative thinking is addictive to each of the Big Three: the Mind, the Body, and the Emotions. If one doesn't get you, the others are waiting in the wings."
-- Peter McWilliams

"I don't really care how I am remembered as long as I bring happiness and joy to people."
-- Eddie Albert, 1906*-2005.


Image from RonsThings.com).

(*Although some sources give the year as 1908, Mr. Albert's mother, who was unmarried at his birth, later altered the birth certificate for propriety's sake, Edward Albert Jr. told The Associated Press.According to The New York Times.)

"The boy you trained, gone he is, consumed by Darth Vader."
-- Yoda, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

"Look, you're either loved or hated. Which is a good thing, as Bette Davis used to say. Because if they just like you, you're f*cked."
-- Mario Cantone, in New York Magazine, May 30, 2005.


Image from Streicher Photo.

"I believe we should all curse as much as possible in these repressive times."
-- Everett Quinton, at the Lucille Lortel Awards, earlier this month.


Image from Out Smart Magazine.

"If you can't think anything nice, don't think anything at all..."
-- Caeriel

"The spiritual path is not a matter of growing more metaphysically complicated; it's a process where we actually grow simpler and simpler, as we apply certain basic principles to everything we go through. We don't learn love, which is already etched on our hearts; we do, however, begin to unlearn fear. And with every change we make from blame to blessing, we pierce the veil of illusion that separates us from the world we want."
-- Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change.


Image from Road and Travel.

"Ozone and friendship will be our stimulants - let the drugs, tobacco, and strong drink go forever. Natural joy brings no headaches or heartaches."
-- Elbert Hubbard

"Some people strengthen society just by being the people they are."
-- John Gardner.

"I believe spirit and energy are fraternal twins, born of the same egg."
-- Pearl Hoffman

"I've never died on screen, but I like the idea. Then I'd just have to lie down and do nothing."
-- Will Smith

"[The Riddler] really was a catalyst for me... I was nobody. I had done some guest shots here and there. But after I did that, I became a headliner in Vegas, so I can't put it down."
-- Frank Gorshin, 1934-2005



Image from the Lawrenceville Historical Society.

"You kind of know it's coming, but it's bittersweet because when you love a character you want it to keep living on. I think George [Lucas] will do that... I have a feeling with George, you know...Yoda's such a popular character he'll probably do more things with him in the future, he just needs to settle back and relax a bit first... We haven't talked about it. But, whatever it is, if he wants me, I'm there."

-- Frank Oz, on the release of the final motion picture in the Star Wars saga. To Campbell Robertson, in the New York Times, May 17, 2005.


Image from University of California at Santa Barbara).

"Winners do what losers don't want to."
-- Dr. Phil McGraw

"When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."
-- Audre Lorde


Image from NNDB.

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."
-- Oscar Levant.

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
-- Albert Camus

"Another thing that we must eliminate is talking about limitation; we must not even think of it or read about, or have any connection with it in any of our thinking, for we get only that which we think, no more and no less. This will be a hard thing to do. But if we remember that we are working out the science of being, though it nay seem long and hard at times, we sooner or later do it, and once it is done forever..."
-- Ernest Holmes, Creative Mind and Success.

"Michelangelo's nose was broken by another artist. People do that to me, but in a different way"

"I am Peter Pan in my heart."

"Didn't Jesus say, 'bring on the children?'... If it wasn't for children, I'd throw in the towel. I'd feel I don't have any reason to live."

-- Michael Jackson, Living with Michael Jackson, tv special.


Image from Ananova.

"It's the Fertile Inquiry time of year for you, Cancerian. The more questions you ask yourself, the better you'll feel. Here are a few to get you started. What do you want to be when you grow up? Are you prepared to start nurturing yourself as well as you nurture others? When will you dismantle the barriers within you that prevent those who love you from loving you with all their power? Are you finally ready to act on the understanding that home is not just a building, but a state of mind, and that you need to work harder to foster that state?"
-- Rob Brezsny, Free Will Astrology

"We signal each other, we set each other off, we wake up each other's inborn talent for luminosity."
-- Marc Ian Barasch, Field Notes on the Compassionate Life: A Search for the Soul of Kindness."



Image from SunMagazine.org

Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic
experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed
their test in life. They're aristocrats.
-- Diane Arbus

"How can we resent the life we've created for ourselves?"
-- Richard Bach

"When you have the media coverage and the fan base that the New York teams have, and when you don't meet expectations, New Yorkers aren't exactly known for holding their tongues anyway, and that can make for some tough times."
-- Mike Stanton, Yankees pitcher, on the abysmal season the highest paid team in Baseball is having so far, as quoted by The New York Times.


Image from Home Run Cards.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. Well, I've got a few things I want to say for a change.

"This is going to be fun because he really doesn't have a clue about what I'm gonna' to say next.

"George always says he's delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He's usually in bed by now.

"I'm not kidding.

"I said to him the other day, "George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."

"I am married to the president of the United States, and here's our typical evening: Nine o'clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I'm watching Desperate Housewives— with Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife. I mean, if those women on that show think they're desperate, they oughta be with George.

"One night, after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendale's. I wouldn't even mention it except Ruth Ginsberg and Sandra Day O'Connor saw us there. I won't tell you what happened, but Lynne's Secret Service codename is now "Dollar Bill."

"But George and I are complete opposites — I'm quiet, he's talkative, I'm introverted, he's extroverted, I can pronounce nuclear —

"The amazing thing, however, is that George and I were just meant to be. I was the librarian who speant 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George.

"We met, and married, and I became one of the regulars up at Kennebunkport. All the Bushes love Kennebunkport, which is like Crawford, but without the nightlife. People ask me what it's like to be up there with the whole Bush clan. Lemme put it this way: First prize — three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize — 10 days.

"Speaking of prizes brings me to my mother-in-law. So many mothers today are just not involved in their children's lives — Not a problem with Barbara Bush. People often wonder what my mother-in-law's really like. People think she's a sweet, grandmotherly, Aunt Bea type. She's actually more like, mmm, Don Corleone.

"Cedric, am I doing all right?

"I saw my in-laws down at the ranch over Easter. We like it down there. George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place. Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse.

"Now, of course, he spends his days clearing brush, cutting trails, taking down trees, or, as the girls call it, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw — which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.

"It's always very interesting to see how the ranch air invigorates people when they come down from Washington. Recently, when Vice President Cheney was down, he got up early one morning, he put on his hiking boots, and he went on a brisk, 20- to 30-foot walk..."

-- Laura Bush, at the 2005 White House Correspondents' Dinner.


Image from Fedpac.org.

"How would you like it, as women, to have testosterone running through your body every day?"
-- Goldie Hawn on The View, discussing whether she monitors the fidelty of Kurt Russell.


Image from Daily Times Pakistan.

"Take your work seriously, but never yourself."
-- Dame Margot Fonteyn.


Image from Safka-Bareis.

"The way into this new world can be so simple - and so sweet. When you're willing to listen to your own voice and trust yourself enough to follow your heart, you encounter your true power - a power marked by courage and vulnerability. Any moment you offer a whole-hearted 'Yes!' to your own truth, you are infused with the power, self-worth, self-respect, self-esteem and confidence that will give wings to the best year of your life."
-- Debbie Ford, The Best Year of Your Life.

"Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think.
-- Ambrose Bierce


Image from Science Bob.

"For an actor or a playwright, even a critic one must always believe that what one does is important."

-- Mel Gussow, 1933-2005

"I'm a study of a man in chaos in search of frenzy."
-- Oscar Levant.

"Could have, should have, and a shovel will dig you a hole."
--Old Yiddish Expression

"...You can also resolve to steer clear of people who always go on about your faults and failings simply because it makes it easier for them to keep you under their thumb. Make the break today."
-- Sally Brompton

"It's the friends that you can call at 4 a.m. that matter."
-- Marlene Dietrich


Image from VNN.

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."
-- Kahlil Gibran


Image from University of Oklahoma.

"No one wants to die who can live."
-- Phivos Kitromelides, on the day of his death, last week.


(Image from Namasthenri).

“If you want to look young and thin, hang around old fat people.”
-- Jim Eason

“I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate.”
-- George Burns


Image from ZY World

"If you want to empower women in America, give 'em a gun."

- Tom DeLay, addressing the NRA, as quoted on Blog to Eleven

"I, 15 years ago, had a problem because I behaved inappropriately. The ethics committee stepped in. Newt Gingrich had a problem. He was reprimanded; the ethics committee stepped in. The difference between us and Mr. DeLay is, I think, we changed our behavior. Mr. DeLay changed the ethics committee."

-- Barney Frank, as quoted on Boozhy Blog.

"A person who is severely impaired never knows his hidden sources of strength until he is treated like a normal human being and encouraged to shape his own life."
-- Helen Keller


Image from Educational Synthesis.

"Got some room for improvement in the happiness department? These tips may come in handy:

* Realize that enduring happiness doesn't come from success as it's often defined.
* Take control of your time.
* Act happy.
* Seek work and leisure that engages your skills.
* Get aerobic exercise.
* Get enough sleep.
* Give priority to close relationships.
* Focus beyond yourself.
* Appreciate what you have. Try keeping a gratitude journal of what you're thankful for.
* Nurture your spiritual self.
* Tell positive stories about your life. Tell the truth, but look for the good.
* Live a multidimensional life.
* Focus on your choices and any power you have in your situation.
* Find and lead with your strengths."

-- David G. Myers, PhD, a psychology professor at Michigan's Hope College, and Dan Baker, PhD, a medical psychologist at Canyon Ranch. Myers' books include The Pursuit of Happiness; Baker wrote What Happy People Know, as quoted on WebMD.

"Everything has been said before. But because nobody listens we have to keep going back to the beginning and starting all over again."
-- Andre' Gide

"Cause you never can tell
what goes on down below!
This pool might be bigger
than you and I know."
-- Dr. Seuss, McElligott’s Pool



Image from Born-Today.

"You may feel like dwelling on your limits or your fears. Don't do it. A perfect prescription for a squandered, unfulfilled life is to accommodate self-defeating feelings while undercutting your finest, most productive ones".
-- Marsha Sinetar, To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."
-- Mahatma Gandhi

"Real change of self isn't found in some new way to think about yourself, but in freedom from the need to think about yourself at all."
-- Guy Finley, The Secret of Letting Go.

"Imagine waking up each day knowing that you are standing on a clean slate. Your past is behind you, your tasks are up to date and your projects are complete. What could you create if there were no unresolved issues, projects or relationships to divert your attention?

"In order to create the best year of your life - one that will inspire you to create each year as your very finest - it is essential to take some time to clean your slate by bringing completion to the past before trying to move ahead. Many of us skip this step because we are anxious to get on to the next idea, goal or project. But there is great value and insight to be extracted from the process of honestly reflecting on where we've been, where we are now, and where we hope to go. By honestly examining the areas where we've fallen short, we can avoid similar pitfalls in the future. And by wholeheartedly acknowledging ourselves for what we've done well, we build our confidence and set the stage for even greater success and fulfillment.

"In the midst of this glorious spring season, I want to support you in taking a thorough inventory of where you currently stand. Look to see what is working in your life, what isn't, what you have accomplished so far in 2005 and what you would like to create as the year progresses.

"Claim the remaining days of April as a focused time for bringing renewed energy and intention to creating the life of your dreams. To help you get the energy moving, here is a process you can use to clean your slate and prepare for a phenomenal summer."

-- Debbie Ford, The Best Year of Your Life, debbieford.com.

"If you can’t change your fate, change your attitude".
-- Amy Tan

"It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth -- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had."
-- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross


Image from B.T.

"Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we've feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now."

"What's disturbing about this spectacle is not so much its tastelessness; America will always have a fatal attraction to sideshows. What's unsettling is the nastier agenda that lies far less than six feet under the surface. Once the culture of death at its most virulent intersects with politicians in power, it starts to inflict damage on the living."

"We don't know the identity of the corpse that will follow the pope in riveting the nation's attention. What we do know is that the reality show we've made of death has jumped the shark, turning from a soporific television diversion into the cultural embodiment of the apocalyptic right's growing theocratic crusade."

-- Frank Rich, A Culture of Death, Not Life, The New York Times, today.

"Begin somewhere; you cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do."
-- Liz Smith


Image from Austin Chronicle.

"So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
And remember that life’s a great balancing act.

"And will you succeed?
Yes! You will indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed)

KID YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!"

-- Dr. Seuss, Oh the Places You’ll Go


Image from the NEA.

"You want to make a difference. You want to make the world a better place. But what can one person do? Quite a lot, as it happens, but perhaps not in the way that you imagine. The best way to change the world is to first change yourself. Like ripples on a pond, those changes will spread out to touch everyone who lives."
-- Sally Brompton, Astrologer

"Some of you have noticed in the last several days that I wasn't covering the pope. However, as some of you now know, I have learned that I have lung cancer. I was a smoker until about 20 years ago. …. I have been reminding my colleagues today who have been incredibly supportive that already 10 million Americans have been living with cancer, and I have a lot to learn from them. And living is the key word. We are survivors from the moments of diagnosis. I will continue to broadcast on good days. My voice will not always be like this. Certainly it's been a long time, and I hope it goes without saying that a journalist who doesn't deeply value the audiences is in the wrong work. Even I was taken aback by how far and fast news travels. Finally, I wonder if other men and women ask their doctors right away, okay, when does the hair go? At any rate, that's it for now. Have a good evening. Thanks and good night."


Image from Time.

"I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men."
-- Lao Tzu

"There are a few other weird things about this deal. The proposed 75,000-seat stadium - surrounded by the dense, traffic-jammed neighborhoods of Hell's Kitchen, Times Square and Chelsea - will be built with no new provisions made for parking. On game days, the entire West Side of Manhattan will be paralyzed. Fans driving to the stadium will be lucky to make it inside before the final gun."
-- Bob Herbert, The Billionaires' Club, in today's New York Times.

"Time's fun when you're having flies."
-- Kermit the Frog


Image from the BBC.

"It is legitimate and necessary to ask oneself if this [gay marriage issue] is not perhaps part of a new ideology of evil, perhaps more insidious and hidden, which attempts to pit human rights against the family and against man,"
-- Pope John Paul II, 1920-2005, Memory and Identity, his autobiography.


Image from Salon.

"It takes a tough man to raise a tender chicken."

"My chickens eat better than you do. A chicken is what it eats. If you want to start eating as good as my chickens, take a tip from me - eat my chickens."

"Freeze my chickens? I'd rather eat beef!"

"The president of the United States? What does he know about chickens?"

-- Frank Perdue, 1920-2005.


Image from Fortune.

"Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two, but can't remember what they are."
-- Matt Lauer, as quoted on Higher Powered.

"Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo took her last breath unaware of the firestorm raging outside the tranquil hospice where she had lived for the past five years.

"But her saga left a profound impression on the nation, sparking extraordinary attempts by politicians to keep her alive as they fought her husband over her fate.

"She left behind not only a shattered family but millions of vocal mourners from the Vatican to the streets outside her hospice. Yet, even as those mourners drew most of the attention, the vast majority of Americans believed she had the right to die.

"Perhaps most of all, her story was a lesson for countless people who never discussed, much less wrote down, what they would want if they were suddenly thrust into her tragic situation."

-- Maya Bell, Reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, published in the Kansas City Star.

"If it doesn't fit, you must acquit."

"It's the line that eventually will be cited by Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, the line endlessly quoted to me by people, the line by which I'll be remembered, and I suspect it will probably be my epitaph."

-- Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., Esq., 1937-2005.


Image from University of Iowa.

"Come and listen to a story about a man named Jed
A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,
Then one day he was shootin at some food,
And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude.

Oil that is, black gold, Texas tea.

Well the first thing you know ol' Jed's a millionaire,
Kinfolk said Jed move away from there
Said Californy is the place you ought to be
So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly.

Hills, that is.
Swimmin pools, movie stars.

The Beverly Hillbillies!

(Epilogue)

Well now its time to say good-bye to Jed and all his kin.
And they would like to thank you folks fer kindly droppin in.
You’re all invited back again to this locality
To have a heapin helpin of their hospitality

Hillbilly that is. Set a spell. Take your shoes off. Y'all come back now, y'hear?"

-- Paul Henning, Creator of the Beverly Hillbillies, and songwriter of The Ballad of Jed Clampett, 1911-2005.


Image from EPGuides.

"Real change of self isn't found in some new way to think about yourself, but in freedom from the need to think about yourself at all."
-- Guy Finley, The Secret of Letting Go.

"I was coming out of the shower and I fell and all my body weight - I'm pretty fragile - all my body weight fell against my rib cage, And I bruised my lung very badly... Elizabeth Taylor used to feed me, to hand-feed me, at times... Please, I don't want anybody to think I'm starving, I'm not. My health is perfect, actually."
-- Michael Jackson, in an interview with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.


Image from MTV.

“I’m outraged, and I think that every American in this country should also be outraged, that this government is trampling all over a personal family matter that has been adjudicated in the courts for seven years.”
-- Michael Schaivo


Image from The New York Times.

"Right about now I feel as low as I ever have... I'm starting to regret sticking around. I should've taken the razor blade express last time around. Well, whatever, man. Maybe they've got another shuttle comin' around sometime soon."

-- Jeff Weise on his LiveJournal blog, several weeks prior to going on a suicidal shooting spree at Red Lake High School, Signs of Danger Were Missed in a Troubled Teenager's Life, by Monica Davey and Jodi Wilgoren, The New York Times.

"I understand the importance of bondage between parent and child."
-- Dan Quayle

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers."
-- Kahlil Gibran

"I am a Negro who has never lived in the South, thank God, nor was I ever trapped in an urban ghetto. I grew up in Danville, Illinois, where my family always lived on a pleasant street in a pleasant neighborhood."
-- Bobby Short, 1924-2004


Image from Danville Library.

"My final thought is a simple but mighty one:
it is the obligation we have been given.
It is to not turn out the same.
It is to grow, to accomplish,
to change the world."

-- Stephen Sondheim, Merrily We Roll Along.


Imge from SJSondheim.com.

"There are always flowers for those who want to see them."
-- Henri Matisse


Image from MoMA.

Barbara Cook: "I remember going into Joe Allen's , and you saying 'God, I hate you. You always make me cry. When you sing, you always make me cry.'"

Stephen Sondheim: "Well, you do. It's all about passion. It's what we do for a living. And when I say, do for a living, I do not mean money. It's what you invest of yourself."

-- Joyce Wadler, As quoted in Boldface, The New York Times, today.


Image from tla video.

"Don't bid the devil good day till you meet him."
-- Irish Proverb.

"'All human beings should try to learn what they are running from, and to, and why,' said James Thurber. Judging from the astrological omens, Cancerian, I think this is the perfect time for you to take his advice very seriously. You're in position to see things that are normally invisible to you, including secrets you hide from yourself and truths you have studiously avoided knowing. Maybe you don't think you're telepathic, but I assure you that right now you at least have the power to read your own deep and mysterious mind."
-- Robert Brezny, Free Will Astrology

"I've always been a praying person."
-- Hillary Rodham Clinton

“If I who am nothing, who am nobody, have been allowed to visit so many great cities of the world with my fare paid, then anyone can do it.”
-– Quentin Crisp, How to Have a Life-Style, Circa 1978.


Image from Digilander.

"You know, honey, I've noticed you walk into a party and you sit in the corner. You can't do that. When you say yes to a party, that's a social contract. You're saying yes to being charming, being interesting, and being part of the group."
-- Cy Coleman, to his wife, as related in a New York Times article by Lois Smith Brady, March 6, 2005.


Image from Musiq.

"Don't worry if you relapse. It's how you respond to a relapse that counts."
-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up, p. 247.

"I think it's tragic what women are doing to their faces, trying to
look like dolls. It doesn't make women look younger; it makes them look wierd. When you hit a point where you're looking like a doll, you're gone. As a spiritual being, you're dead.".
-- Kirstie Alley, on cosmetic surgery, in The New York Times.

"To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right."
-- Confucious, as quoted by the Higher Powered blog.

"Dan Rather's attempts to defend himself, however, spoke more of an aging anchor's self-delusion than self-knowledge. 'Too much passion melded to loving the work leads to making mistakes,' Mr. Rather said in the hourlong tribute. 'I would rather have too much than not enough.'... "The mistake that led to last night's premature farewell was more mundane than that. The final indignity for Mr. Rather wasn't just that his career ended on a mistake, but that the flawed '60 Minutes' story trapped him in the role he most despised: an overextended news reader who relied, too blindly, on the shoddy reporting of his producers."
-- Alessandra Stanley, Signing Off: Rather's Wish for Viewers Is Still 'Courage', The New York Times.

"That prison is punishment is the first lesson. Eventually, every inmate hears the correctional officer's favorite sonnet: 'You did the crime, now do your time.' Prison is cold.

"The second lesson inmates learn is how to do the time. During my first two weeks I was administered a battery of tests, after which the guards assigned me to the prison laundry.

"For me, doing time wasn't so bad because I also enjoyed reading and soon discovered that I could counsel needy inmates. But most inmates 'did time' by trying to sleep it away. In the dormitory at any hour of the day or night I'd find half the inmates stretched out, sleeping 18 hours a day. Life in prison corrodes the soul.

"The third lesson is that there is vocational training for the fortunate few, but for most, the only "training" is learning how to avoid getting caught the next time. At Maxwell, evening conversations in the TV room sounded like seminars on improving professional criminal qualifications. It's not surprising that 67 percent of inmates are arrested or incarcerated again within two years.

"The fourth lesson is: trust no one. I had good training for this in the White House, where the maneuvering of presidential counselors resembled a hockey game in the Nixon years. That training served me well in the prison. I was a public figure; every inmate wanted to befriend me. Among them were the many good, God-fearing folk who made their living with secret moonshine stills and who never let prison interfere with their vocation. With a supply of raisins and potatoes swiped from the mess hall, they brewed a lethal mix in the prison dormitory attic and were eager to share their product with me. I declined. Marijuana was freely available, as were other numbers of favors I was offered.

"Many offers seemed well intentioned, but there were those who would have delighted in leading me astray. Prisons are desperately lonely places, deadly boring, and inmates play mind games for amusement."

-- Chuck Colson, Martha Stewart Living Free, The New York Times

"From [the age of] seven years, I started to go to concerts, collecting autographs and preparing the scores for the concert during the week and, of course, dreaming that the conductor would be sick. Then I would jump on the stage, make my debut and I would be famous... It did happen, with the Romanian State Ensemble – without poisoning the conductor,"
-- Sergiu Comissiona, former Music Director for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, 1928-2005.

"Ain't the beer cold!"
--Chuck Thompson, Legendary sportscaster for the Baltimore Orioles and the Baltimore Colts, 1922-2005

"I heard a fact the other day that the population of New York City has the least amount of virgins of any area of that size in the U.S. Raise your hand if you're surprised by this."
-- John Holowach, The Holowach Blog.

1. God is good and everywhere present.
2. The spirit of God lives within each person, therefore, all people are inherently good.
3. We create our life experiences through our way of thinking.
4. There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our connection to God.
5. Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.


-- The five basic Unity principles, as paraphrased by Unity Church of Fort Collins.

"Martha Stewart returned in the early morning hours yesterday to one of her homes, a sprawling model farm in rural Westchester County. And there she found that not much had changed since she last roamed free, with reporters and photographers camped by the dozen in front of her house and the public keenly interested in every detail of her post-prison existence.

"She passed around coffee and doughnuts to reporters gathered outside her property. And she strolled from building to building on the grounds, wearing a long winter-white coat and clearly displaying a happy mood, even waving to a helicopter hovering 1,000 feet overhead.

"It is the most freedom she will have until early August. Ms. Stewart, who must complete five months of home confinement as the next part of her sentence, has until Sunday to report to her federal probation officer. She is to be fitted with a plastic monitoring device, which she will wear on one ankle, that will allow probation officials to track her movements. The probation department will also install a transmitter in her house, said Chris Stanton, chief probation officer for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

"Then the truly restrictive aspects of home confinement begin. Ms. Stewart will be confined to a single building, almost certainly the main house on the 153-acre expanse at the corner of Maple Avenue and Girdle Ridge Road in Bedford that she has spent the last three years restoring, sometimes to the annoyance of local zoning officials.

"She may have her dogs at her side, but she is not allowed to go outside to walk them. She can keep chickens, but she is not permitted in the henhouse. She may have a garden, but she herself cannot dig in the dirt."

-- Constance L. Hays, Home Sweet Home Confinement, The New York Times, today.


Image from The New York Times.

"The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference."
--Anonymous

"Feelings misinform."
--Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up.

"You can see them in any kind of weather and at almost any time of day. On bicycles that look sturdy enough to withstand a collision with a tank, the seats often wrapped in old plastic bags, they surge ahead through snow and rain, heat and, yes, especially gloom of night. No marble carving will ever exalt their heroic efforts, yet they are fixtures of almost any residential neighborhood in New York City. They deliver dinner, and sometimes lunch and breakfast, too. Yet within the reinforced bags dangling from their handlebars, the prepared dishes in their plastic, microwave-proof containers convey far more than a meal. They speak of the evolving stew of cultures that simmers throughout the five boroughs. They speak of the typical New Yorker's contradictory character: brash but overworked, stoic but requiring rewards, impatient but willing to wait. Most of all they embody what many New Yorkers regard as an inalienable right: to have meals of almost any conceivable sort delivered to their door, hot, fragrant and appetizing."
-- Eric Asimov, In New York, the World Is Brought to Your Door, The New York Times

"Why do I write? It's not that I want people to think I am smart, or even that I am a good writer. I write because I want to end my loneliness."
-- Jonathan Safran Foer, in an interview, The New York Times Magazine.