"Do or do not, there is no try".

-- Yoda

"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

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."

-- Aldous Huxley

“Teaching is like being a parent over, and over, and over.”

-- A. De Vito

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: WOW - What a Ride!"

-- Anonymous

"To be amused by what you read--that is the great spring of happy quotations".

-- C.E. Montague

"The mediator between brain and hands must be the heart!"

-- Fritz Lang's Metropolis, 1927.

"Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence".

-- Henrik Tikkanen

"A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child".

-- H. L. Mencken

"He who turns the other cheek will get hit with the other fist."

-- Nipsey Russell, 1923-2005.


Image from Comic Strip El Paso.

"Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength."

-- August Wilson, 1945-2005


Image from SUNY.

"Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people.

"Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

"Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're
saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

"But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man.

"Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes. "On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

"So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'"

-- Bill Maher

"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog".

-- Peter Steiner

"It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too."
-- H.W. Shaw

"Life is difficult."

--M. Scott Peck, 1936-2005, author of The Road Less Traveled

"Sorry about that, Chief."

-- Don Adams (Donald James Yarmy), 1923-2005, as Maxwell Smart.


Image from USA Today.

"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time".

-- Willem de Kooning

"Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on".

-- Samuel Butler

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it".

-- Edith Sitwell

"Not winning does not mean you are a bad person. It just means you're not a good actor."
-- Ellen Degeneres, at the 2005 Emmy Awards.

"Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else's can shorten it".

-- Cullen Hightower

"You come to New York with a dream. But luck doesn't smile on everyone, and sometimes, life here is more horror film than romantic comedy."

-- Elizabeth Gold, Goodbye to All That, The New York Times, yesterday.

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't."

-- Erica Jong

"Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad".
-- Diogenes the Cynic

"Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative".
-- Oscar Wilde

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars".

-- Charles A. Beard, as quoted by Higher Powered.

"Quit saying that word! It's the only decade that scared the hell out of me. It's just the sound of it. Eight, holy shit! No, I don't like the sound of that. But it's here and I'll deal with it. You'd better believe it. Because not to deal with it is exit city."

-- Elaine Stritch, Elaine Stritch: Still Here, New York Magazine, this week.

"Among the few certain truths of September 11, 2001, is one that applies to every day that dawns. That there is no guarantee of tomorrow, or the next five minutes. This is the central provision of all contracts between people and their lives. No plans, large or small, are exempt."

-- Paul Vitello, The Eleventh of Never, in The New York Times, today.

"With all their faults, trade unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men".

-- Clarence Darrow

"I feel challenged without feeling overwhelmed. The first month should be pretty hectic, but like the room, things will get sorted."

-- Glenn, at Glennalicious

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

-- William Butler Yeats

"Gilligan's Island is wherever you want it to be in your mind".

-- Bob Denver, (1935-2005) as quoted by Brainy Quote.


Image from Affirmation.org

"During this time of year, when students are going back to school. I allow myself to be open and receptive to learning new ideas. I monitor my self-talk, making sure that it is uplifting and supportive of myself and others."

-- Louise Hay

"I work for enjoyment and satisfaction - and not just to earn a living. I use my mind and thoughts to enhance my life."

-- Louise Hay

"There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."

-- Marshall McLuhan

"The ghosts of the past
which follow us into the present
also belong to the present moment.
To observe them deeply,
recognize their nature
and transform them,
is to transform the past."

-- Thich Nhat Hanh


Image from Harvard University.

"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

-- Mahatma Gandhi

"Things you have no control over, you can't be beat up with. You wouldn't be a happy person."

-- Jimmy McHale, owner of McHale's Tavern at West 46th and 8th Avenue, on news that the building that houses his family business for more than 50 years has been sold. As quoted in today's The New York Times.

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

-- Edith Wharton

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone".

--­Bill Cosby


Image from Afro-American Syndicate

"I felt that I could go and have a 'vacation' (making quote marks with her fingers in the air), "this was a time to think about the future. I pretty much thought about a lot of serious good things."

-- Martha Stewart, on her impending freedom, as quoted in today's New York Times.


(Image from The New York Times)

"The basic rule of human nature is that powerful people speak slowly and subservient people quickly, because if they don't speak fast nobody will listen to them".

-- Michael Caine


Image from the BBC.

"Channeling is just bad ventriloquism. You use another voice, but people can see your lips moving".

-- Penn Jillette, as quoted on The Quotations Page.


Image from Self-Gov.org

"When you grow up your mother says, 'Wear rubbers or you'll catch cold.' When you become an adult you discover that you have the right not to wear rubbers and to see if you catch cold or not. It's something like that".

-- Diane Arbus

"The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind."

-- Diane Arbus

"God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference".

"I was coming home from kindergarten--well they told me it was kindergarten. I found out later I had been working in a factory for ten years. It's good for a kid to know how to make gloves".

-- Ellen DeGeneres


Image from Adweek.

"Art is an accurate statement of the time in which it was made".

-- Robert Mapplethorpe


Photo from Georgetown University.

"Once you have made a decision that nothing is more important than that you feel good, and you have decided that you are going to consciously look for some things to appreciate today, the object of your attention has now become the feeling of appreciation. You have now established a circuit between you and that object of appreciation that the Law of Attraction will begin working on immediately, so you will start seeing more things to appreciate right away."

-- Abraham, in Ask and it is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks.

"If you want things to change to different things, you must think different thoughts. And that simply requires finding unfamiliar ways of approaching familiar subjects."

-- Abraham, Ask and it is Given by Hicks, pg. 96.

"I'd always said it doesn't matter if I'm fat. But now that I'm not fat, I'm like eww."

-- Kirstie Alley, after losing 50 plus pounds recently, as quoted in today's The New York Times.


Image from New York Metro.

"Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague curiosity about one of those".

-- Mark Twain

"Once you deliberately choose a thought and consciously feel the improvement in the way you feel, you have successfully utilized your own guidance system, and you can now be on your way to the freedom that you desire and deserve - for there is nothing that you cannot be, do, or have."

-- Abraham, Ask and it is Given, by Hicks, pg 111.

"When you remember that everyone who asks is given, then how wonderful and appropriate it is for you to make the choices for you - for the Universe operates much more efficiently without a middleman interceding on your behalf. No one else knows what is appropriate for you - but you do. You always know in the moment what is best for you."

-- abraham, ask and it is given by hicks, pg 98.

"Others cannot understand the vibrational content of your desires, and they cannot understand the vibrational content of where you are, so they are not equipped to guide you. Even when they have the very best of intentions and want your absolute Well-Being, they do not know. And even though many of them attempt to be unselfish, it is never possible for them to separate their desire for you from their own desire for themselves."

-- abraham, ask and it is given by hicks, p. 96.

"The greatest gift that you could ever give to another is your own happiness, for when you are in a state of joy, happiness, or appreciation, you are fully connected to the Stream of pure , positive Source Energy that is truly who you are. And when you are in that state of connection, anything or anyone that you are holding as your object of attention benefits from your attention."

-- Abraham, Ask and it is Given, by Hicks.

"There is no condition so severe that you cannot reverse it by choosing different thoughts. However, choosing different thoughts requires focus and practice. If you continue to focus as you have been, to think as you have been, and to believe as you have been, then nothing in your experience will change."

-- Abraham, in Ask and it is Given, pg 95.

"Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistably desired."

-- Robert Frost


(Image from Ketzle).

"They're always making me play well-bred ladies. I'm not very well bred, and I'm not much of a lady."


-- Barbara Bel Geddes, (1922-2005, to People magazine in 1982, and quoted by The New York Times, today.


Image from DVD Toile.

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."

-- Henry David Thoreau

"If you build castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them".

-- Henry David Thoreau

"There are a lot of people who think our job is to reassure the public every night that their home, their community and their nation is safe. I don't subscribe to that at all. I subscribe to leaving people with essentially, sorry it's a cliche, a rough draft of history. Some days it's reassuring, some days it's absolutely destructive."

-- Peter Jennings, (1938-2005), in an interview with Jeff Alan.



(Image from ABC News Store).

"He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed."

-- Saki

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

-- Willie Nelson

"So you swim, you don't wear eye make-up, you have short hair and you are a prison officer and you are heterosexual? Come on!"
-- Anne Robinson, Hostess of Britain's The Weakest Link.

"We are what we repeatedly do".

-- Anonymous, from a sign hanging in a Queens elementary school.

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it".

-- W.M. Lewis

"The imagination is a discovering faculty, a faculty for seeing relationships, for seeing meanings that are special and even quite new."

-- Thomas Merton

"One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility."

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, as cited by Nicomar


Image from Divas - The Site

"I can't imagine myself not performing. I like to be in harness. I'm good. I know I'm good. And I'm ready."

-- Hildegarde, 1906-2005., as quoted in 1995 by The New York Times.


Image from NYT.

"Never confuse movement with action".
-- Ernest Hemingway

"Always keep several get well cards on the mantel, so if unexpected guests arrive they will think you have
been sick and unable to clean".

-- Lady Donothing, in an e-mail forward.


Image from Heart Gardens.

"Dear Jesus, please protect us from your righteous followers."

-- Anonymous

"There are two kinds of light--the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures".

-- James Thurber

"Romper Bomper Stomper Boo,
Tell me,
Tell me,
Tell me do.
Magic Mirror, tell me today?
Did all my friends,
Have fun at play?"

-- Romper Room, Children's TV Series, 1960's

"The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people--that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature".

-- James Thurber


Image from Tralfaz.

"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."

-- T.S. Eliot


Image from Sam Houston State University.

"You ask people why they have deer heads on the wall. They always say, 'Because it's such a beautiful animal'. There you go!... I think my mother's attractive, but I have photographs of her!"

-- Ellen DeGeneres


Image from CNN.

"Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent".

-- Sophia Loren


Image from Fembio.org

"The warp drive is a hopeless pile of junk."

-- James Doohan, 1920-2005, as "Scotty" in Star Trek, The Doomsday Machine, stardate 4202.9, Episode 35


Image from Answers.com.

"I was forgotten, so I had nothing to live up to. It was the best thing in the circumstances. I could start at the bottom learning the new craft of directing."

-- Geraldine Fitzgerald, 1913-2005, while directing Mass Appeal on Broadway, after starring in films Wuthering Heights and Arthur.


Image from the Guardian Unlimited.

"The buck stops over yonder."

-- President Harry S. Truman, a sign he used to keep on his desk at the White House.


Image from CPS Sports.

"Have you ever noticed that people who say they lack self-esteem seem to spend their entire lives overcompensating for it?"

-- Clive Barnes, in his review of The Blonde in the Thunderbird, in today's New York Post.

"When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half."
-- Gracie Allen

"You've learned to take care of yourself first. That is a big change. It's jolting for people who expect you to be more accomodating. You appear selfish and rejecting, but only in contrast to how fawning and pliable you used to be. You're more impatient, self-righteous, and intolerant of other people's addictions and weaknesses".

-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up, p. 208

"People don't realize it, but overload of stuff is a terrific source of stress."
-- Don Aslett

"A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know."

-- H.L. Mencken

"Each moment is a place you've never been."
-- Mark Strand, as quoted by Liz Smith.

"In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better".
-- Ellen DeGeneres


(Image from Gazette UWO).

"Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."
- Carl Sandburg

"People come to Coney Island for something unique. It should be more hip hop and more artsy. It's a bunch of New Yorkers running around half naked!"
-- Dick D. Zigun, as quoted in Newsday.


Image from ConeyIsland.com

"I'm absolutely outraged by the failure of the administration to release the [rail security] funding that Congress approved last year..."We are woefully behind where London and other subway systems are because London does have the video surveillance," she fumed. "I just don't understand what the holdup is... It is imperative that the millions of New Yorkers who travel on trains and buses know that our tunnels and facilities continue to operate with the highest security operations in place. The President’s budget calls for a $50 million cut in funding for rail and transit security this year, which is clearly a step in the wrong direction... I will work to ensure that we provide the resources needed to meet our rail and transit security needs."

-- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton


Image from the U.S. Senate

"When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion".
-- Abraham Lincoln



Image from All Posters .

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"
-- Stephen Levine



Image from Kösel-Verlag

"Use everything to your advantage".
-- Muktananda

"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape".
-- Samuel Johnson

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

-- Marcel Proust

"The female singer who wants to be gruff and convincing, she will tend to go ahead and do that quicker than a male singer will soften up and become sensitive. That's society, that's rearing, that's the package. I refuse to buy into that."

-- Luther Vandross, (1951-2005), as told to Richard Harrington , The Washington Post.


Image from NNDB.

"Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand".
-- Emily Kimbrough

"Live life so completely that when death comes to you like a thief in the night, there will be nothing left for him to steal."
-- Anonymous