"Teachers who are cookie cutters are not what we need. We need teachers who are creative and empowered."
-- Joel I Klein, NYC schools chancellor, on implementing a new systemwide curriculum, in today's New York Times.

"Oh, I don't drink these days, I am allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs."
-- Robert Downey, Jr., actor.

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal."
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., Address at March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963.

“Be happy. It is a way of being wise.”
-- Colette

"If Jesus Christ had lived in Chicago, and he had $5,000, and he'd come to me, things would've turned out different.''
-- Richard Gere as defense attorney Billy Flynn in Chicago, motion picture.

"What a nightmare it must be to have a real family."
-- Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Elaine, on Seinfeld.

"You should've seen her face. It was the exact same look my father gave me when I told him I wanted to be a ventriloquist."
-- Jason Alexander as George, on Seinfeld.

"I trust Bush with my daughter, but I trust Clinton with my job."
-- Craig Patterson, Ironworker, in USA Today.

"Shut the door. Not that it lets in the cold but that it lets out the cozyness."
-- Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Notebook

"When people agree with me I always feel that I must be wrong."
-- Oscar Wilde

"New York is a prison, and we are all our own jailers."
-- David Carman, My Dinner with Andre

"He who says it cannot be done should get out of the way of the one who is doing it."
-- Chinese Proverb

"What do you mean you don't do e-mail? Who doesn't have e-mail today? How can you work without e-mail? Get with it. Stop living in the 1800s. What do you write letters with, a quill pen? I'm ashamed of you."
-- Cari Rivera, wife of Matthew Modine, as quoted by Cindy Adams in yesterday's New York Post.

'Let's have some new clichés!"
-- Samuel Goldwyn, producer.

"Don't you see? The rest of the country looks upon New York like we're left-wing, communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers. I think of us that way sometimes, and I live here."
-- Woody Allen, Annie Hall

"It's the New York kids you can't find anywhere else - downtown kids with their overdeveloped senses of humor, their wise-ass remarks, their irony. They're survivors. You can't fake a New York kid."
-- Susan Sarandon, actress, as quoted in New York Magazine.

"As soon as the novelty is over and the force of contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh."
Mark Twain, Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

"Borrowing money from a friend is like having sex. It just completely changes the relationship."
- George Costanza, Seinfeld, tv series.

"If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others."
-- Tryon Edwards

"Every man should be born again on the first day of January. Start with a fresh page. Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past."
-- Henry Ward Beecher

"Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go."
-- Brooks Atkinson

"Once we truly understand that God's will is that we be happy, we no longer feel the need to ask for anything other than that God's will be done."
-- Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

"One of the events of my life is my mother. Some of the rest of you may feel the same. After almost 99 years of frustration, she has finally made a kind of peace with her circumstances. She smiles and kisses everyone's hand, and is spoonfed pureed matter of different colors from a central kitchen. All it took for her to find peace was relinquishing her mind. I wonder what her life would have felt like if she'd done that in the beginning at Sweet Home, Idaho... After reading this, you have undoubtedly concluded that, like his mother, he's surrendered his mind. It is true, or it is becoming true. The mind is where all the problems lie. I'm literally leaping for joy, out of my mind, and into a perfectly peaceful world. The real world greets you this Christmas time with love. God is here, now."
-- Dale Thomas, Christmas Letter from Paran, 2002

"Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy."

-- Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, 1952.

"Although this term is used casually in popular culture, health care professionals define dysfunctional family as one where the relationships among family members are not conducive to emotional and physical health. Sexual or physical abuse, alcohol and drug addictions, delinquency and behavior problems, eating disorders , and extreme aggression are some conditions commonly associated with dysfunctional family relationships... The concept of the dysfunctional family is based on a systems approach to mental health diagnosis and treatment, where the individual's symptoms are seen in the context of relationships with other individuals and groups, rather than as problems unique to the client. There is no strict definition of a "dysfunctional family," and especially in popular usage the term tends to be a catchall for many different relational disorders that take place within the family system and its subsystems (parents, children)..."
-- Gale Research, Gale Encyclopedia of Childhood & Adolescence, 1998.

"Sometimes we performers mess ourselves up, because we feel we don't deserve it."
-- Michael Rivera, musician, in The New York Times, today.)

"Bah Humbug!"
-- Mr. Scrooge, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

"And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."
-- Anonymous, The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 449.

"Right now there is a perception in New York that is something like a tale of two cities: there are some great schools, and a lot of not-so-great schools, and some in the middle.We need that perception to change. That perception will change by the actions we do."
-- Joel Klein, Chancellor, New York City Department of Education.

"The greatest song anybody ever wrote..."
-- Irving Berlin, on describing his own White Christmas.

"It's 10pm... do you know where your children are?"
-- Public Service Announcement in the United States, during the seventies.

"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left."
-- Unknown

"I think that a campaign, that would be a rematch between myself and President Bush, would inevitably involve a focus on the past that would, in some measure, distract from the focus on the future that I think all campaigns have to be about."
-- Al Gore

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
-- William Faulkner

"The new motto for the Baby Boom generation is, 'Don't trust anyone over
seventy!'"
-- Unknown

"If a man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar!"
-- Abraham Lincoln

"It is not only our right, but in a way, our responsibility to be happy. God doesn't provide any of us with happiness that is only meant for us alone. When God sends us happiness, he does so in order that we might then stand up more fully in the world on His behalf."
-- Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

"Have you ever met a proctologist? They usually have a very good sense of humor. You meet a proctologist at a party, don't walk away. Plant yourself there because you will hear the funniest stories you've ever heard. See, no one wants to admit to them that they stuck something up there. Never. It's always an accident. Every proctologist story ends in the same way... 'It was a million to one shot, doc, million to one.' "
- Kramer, as played by Michael Richards on Seinfeld, television series.

"If I went to work in a factory, the first thing I'd do would be to join a union."
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"They have a destruction machine. We don't have a destruction machine."
-- Bill Clinton, in a speech last week.

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party," Gore said. "Fox News Network, The Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh–there’s a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media." -- Al Gore, in The New York Observer.

"Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, The Washington Times and the others. And then they’ll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they’ll start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they’ve pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these R.N.C. talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist."
-- Al Gore, The New York Observer.

"Whatever the conservative dominance of the radio dial, there's no one on the left who can carve meat like Mr. Limbaugh or Mr. Hannity."
-- John Leland, The New York Times, today.

"There are lots of other important things to do in life."
Paul H. O'Neill, in announcing his resignation as Treasury Secretary yesterday.

The most enlightened prayer isn't 'Dear God, send me someone wonderful,' but 'Dear God, help me realize that I am someone wonderful,' "
-- Marianne Williamson

"Eighty percent of success is showing up."
-- Woody Allen

"We'll hold this line until Hell freezes over -- Then we'll hold it on ice skates."
-- Anonymous, from a picket sign.

"The road may be less travelled for a reason..."
-- Fortune Cookie

"Only bad witches are ugly."
-- Glinda, The Witch of the North, The Wizard of Oz motion picture.

"One of the great things about getting old is that you don't have to feel disappointment... You do the best you can."
-- Charlie Rangel, Congressman

"Personally, I know nothing about sex because I have always been married."
-- Zsa-Zsa Gabor, in a speech to the American Bar Association in 1987.

"Every year, weeks before Christmas arid Hanukkah, I say to people, 'Decide right now: Are you going to give this season to God, or are you going to give this season to the ego?' These holidays are about the birth of God and the arrival of miracles. They are about personal transformation and the emergence of a new self. They are not about whose relatives we're going to be with, who we have to buy gifts for, and whether or not we have the money to pay for all of them. Such material considerations rob our energy and eat away at our soul. Yet such anxiety -ridden dynamics will prevail if we surrender to the endless nagging of our ego mind."
-- Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace

"Times Square is neither a time nor a square."
-- Unknown

"I remember going and seeing him once and there were about six girls waiting. These were all young starlets. I saw three of them go in. They went in for about 15 minutes and then I was invited in. I said, 'Elvis, are you having sex with these girls?' He said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'How do you do that?' He said, 'It's easy, they're all different.' "
-- Dennis Hopper

"When so many are lonely, it would be selfish to be lonely alone"
-- Tennessee Williams

"I had a great idea this morning, but I didn't like it."
-- Samuel Goldwyn

"What I'm upset at is Holland America, because it's totally irresponsible not to notify us in advance so that we can make an informed decision as to whether to travel or not. I got the feeling that their primary concern wasn't with the safety of passengers but with their own pockets."
-- Rose Ann Dunn, passenger, who was informed of an outbreak of Norwalk Virus on the Amsterdam, but was not offered a replacement voyage or a refund.

"Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath,
for the instinct to be half asleep all winter
is so strong in me."
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"It is not unusual that I have thoughts that surface, that gel at certain times."
-- Michael Jackson

"Win people to your way of thinking:
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
Begin in a friendly way.
Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
Appeal to the nobler motives.
Dramatize your ideas.
Throw down a challenge."
-- Dale Carnegie

"Most of us wouldn't think of beginning our day without washing the accumulated dirt from the day before off our bodies. Yet far too often we go out into the day without similarly cleansing our minds. And our minds carry more pollution than our bodies, for they carry not only our own toxicity but that of the entire world. We carry the fear, anxiety, stress, and pain not just of our own lives, but of our families, our nation, and millions all over the planet."
-- Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace

"The man who fights for his ideals is the man who is alive."
-- Cervantes

"Just as some people have talent for art, and others for science, some seem to have a greater talent for compassion. Examples abound of humanitarian workers risking their lives for people living the ravages of war, of doctors giving of their talents and abilities to help those in poverty-stricken societies. But not every act of compassion is dramatic. All of us in our own way, just by being more tender and loving, can open our hearts and make a difference in someone's life. Compassion is not just emotion; it is force. It is an aspect of the infinite power of God. Humanity's next great leap in consciousness will be the realization that love is a power to be applied--no less than the power of steam, the power of electricity, or the power of the atom."
-- Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way."
-- e.e. cummings

"The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities ... It is best to win without fighting."
-- Sun-tzu, The Art of War, Planning a Siege

"...never run after your own hat--others will be delighted to do it. Why spoil their fun?"
-- Mark Twain, Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field

I hate quotations.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The Queen came through for me."
-- Paul Burrell, former butler to Princess Diana, after he was cleared of charges of plundering her estate due to intervention by Queen Elizabeth II.

"It is our humility, our desire to be of service, that makes us stars. Not our arrogance."
-- Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love

Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment:
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.
-- Dale Carnegie

"If you condense my life into one day, it looks decent."
-- George Costanza, character on Seinfeld.

"Get laid, get pissed, move on."
-- Richard Harris, actor.

"I hate movies... They're a waste of time. I could be in a pub having more fun talking to idiots rather than sitting down and watching idiots perform."
-- Richard Harris, actor, who died yesterday at age 72.

"I didn't want to come in looking like Mrs. Astor's pet horse."
Sylvia Myer, fielding a compliment about her well-coifed appearance earlier this week at the 13th Annual New York Cabaret Convention, NYC.

Everyone knows that we have a bathroom in the house, but we don't put it in the livingroom."
-- Sylvia Myer, discussing the prevalence of smut in our culture and media, October 25, 2002.

"Happiness ain't a thing in itself--it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant."
-- Mark Twain, Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven

"...with a smile we should instruct our youth..."
-- Moliere, French Playwright (1622-1673)

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
-- Pablo Picasso

"No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those."
-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

"The Atonement means putting love first. In everything. In business as well as everything else. You're in business to spread love. Your screenplay should spread love. Your hair salon should spread love. Your agency should spread love. Your life should spread love. The key to a successful career is realizing that it's not separate from the rest of your life, but is rather an extension of your most basic self. And your most basic self is love."
-- Marianne Willliamson, A Return To Love

"Prejudice is the child of ignorance."
-- Fortune Cookie

"'Instant Gratification' takes too long..."
-- Carrie Fisher, actress and author.

"Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain--maybe a dozen."
-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

"There are two kinds of fool. One says, 'This is old, and therefore good.'
And one says, 'This is new, and therefore better.'
-- John Brunner, science fiction writer.

"Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination."
-- Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger

"My concept of human rights has grown to include not only the rights to live in peace, but also to adequate health care, shelter, food, and to economic opportunity. I hope this award reflects a universal acceptance and even embrace of this broad-based concept of human rights."
-- Jimmy Carter, former President of the United States, on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize today.

"I see their souls and I hold them in my hands, and because I love them they weigh nothing."
-- Pearl Bailey discussing theater audiences, as quoted by Liz Smith, syndicated columnist.

"Sometimes my feelings are so hot that I have to take the pen and put them out on paper to keep them from setting me afire inside; then all that ink and labor are wasted because I can't print the results."
-- Mark Twain

"I have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up."
-- Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

"Life here is about money and work. New Yorkers have to work like the Japanese to live like the Russians."
-- Eric Overmyer, writer & television producer.

"I have always felt friendly toward Satan. Of course that is ancestral; it must be in the blood, for I could not have originated it."
-- Mark Twain in his Autobiography.

"You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose."
-- Indira Gandhi

"I don't say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could".
-- Orson Welles

"We must learn to think only divine thoughts. Angels are the thoughts of God, and in Heaven, humans think like angels. Angels light the way. Angels do not begrudge anyone anything, angels do not tear down, angels do not compete, angels do not constrict their hearts, angels do not fear. That's why they sing and that's how they fly. We, of course, are only angels in disguise."
-- Marianne Williamson, from her book titled A Return To Love.

"So AT&T, whose failing stock I've just managed to dump, in its ceaseless hustle makes a call to my number. A female voice asks for my late husband. By name. I reply, 'Joey Adams is dead. He died over 2 1/2 years ago.' Without a breath the touched, sympathetic person just says: 'OK. So can I have the spouse?' "
-- Cindy Adams, New York Post

"In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders."
Unknown, in an e-mail forward, from Larry Contratti.

Six ways to make people like you:
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.
-- Dale Carnegie

"Fundamental Techniques in Handling People:
Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Arouse in the other person an eager want."
-- Dale Carnegie

"A good teacher leads you to the threshold of your own mind."
-- Kahlil Gibran

"The time is always right to do what is right"
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
-- Dale Carnegie

"Anything you can imagine is real."
-- Pablo Picasso

"Enough with Martha Stewart jokes. I'm telling you for a fact that her new Web site is: 'MarthaStewart.con.' Also that her cabbage-chopping shows have switched from CBS-TV. They now appear on The Comedy Channel. Also that despite losing millions, the woman is still hard at work. She was spotted picking through garbage cans in Tacoma."
-- Cindy Adams, columnist, New York Post.