"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.

"I'm just a girl from a trailer park who had a dream."
-- Hilary Swank


Image from Mega-Star.

"Instead of thinking about what you're missing, try thinking about what you have that everyone else is missing."
-- Anonymous

"Here are the 16 rules I try to live by:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”

2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide. Remember what the Union Civil War general, Tecumseh Sherman said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems. You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There's also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: "A wise man keeps his own counsel."

15. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time; we’re here for a good time.”

-- Bob Parsons, Hot Points! blog, February 15th, 2005.

"Nothing will ever fill that loss [of love that you never received from your past]. Stop getting high and learn to let yourself feel bad."
-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up, p 124.

"I think friendship is the most valuable relationship you can have in your life."
-- Lauren Bacall, on the recent death of a close personal friend.

"I go in and out of closets and drawers and try to get rid of things...It's a kind of aimlessness I find rather pleasant."
-- Lauren Bacall, on her weekends at home in New York.

(From To Have and Have Not, by Ginia Bellafante in The New York Times
.


Image from All Posters.

"Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?"
-- Ernest Gaines

"It always seemed to me a bit pointless to disapprove of homosexuality. It's like disapproving of rain."
-- Francis Maude

(As quoted by David on David's Life).

"... My mind is like a virgin page...waitin' to be writ on !"
-- Sandra Dee, 1942-2005, as Tammy, from Tammy and The Doctor.


Image from Fifties Web.

"I don't think anybody's ever played more performances of Broadway musicals than I have. I've never stopped... I'll sing as long as people want to hear me, and I'll be able to sing as long as I'm alive. If I can talk, I can sing."
-- John Raitt, 1917-2005.

Image from Epinions.

"Good times and bum times,
I've seen them all and, my dear,
I'm still here.
Plush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.

"I've stuffed the dailies
In my shoes.
Strummed ukuleles,
Sung the blues,
Seen all my dreams disappear,
But I'm here.

"I've slept in shanties,
Guest of the W.P.A.,
But I'm here.
Danced in my scanties,
Three bucks a night was the pay,
But I'm here.

"I've stood on bread lines
With the best,
Watched while the headlines
Did the rest.
In the Depression was I depressed?
Nowhere near.
I met a big financier
And I'm here.

"I've been through Gandhi,
Windsor and Wally's affair,
And I'm here.
Amos 'n' Andy,
Mah-jongg and platinum hair,
And I'm here.

"I got through Abie's
Irish Rose,
Five Dionne babies,
Major Bowes,
Had heebie-jeebies
For Beebe's
Bathysphere.
I lived through Brenda Frazier
And I'm here.

"I've gotten through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover,
Gee, that was fun and a half.
When you've been through Herbert and J. Edgar Hoover,
Anything else is a laugh.
I've been through Reno.
I've been through Beverly Hills,
And I'm here.

"Reefers and vino,
Rest cures, religion and pills,
And I'm here
Been called a pinko
Commie tool,
Got through it stinko
By my pool.
I should have gone to an acting school.
That seems clear,
Still, someone said, 'She's sincere,'
So I'm here.

"Black sable one day.
Next day it goes into hock,
But I'm here.
Top billing Monday,
Tuesday you're touring in stock,
But I'm here.

"First you're another
Sloe-eyed vamp,
Then someone's mother,
Then you're camp.
Then you career from career
To career.
I'm almost through my memoirs.
And I'm here.

"I've gotten through 'Hey, lady, aren't you whoozis?
Wow! What a looker you were.'
Or, better yet, 'Sorry, I thought you were whoozis.
Whatever happened to her?'
Good times and bum times,
I've seen 'em all and, my dear,
I'm still here.

"Flush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.
I've run the gamut.
A to Z.
Three cheers and dammit,
C'est la vie.
I got through all of last year
And I'm here.
Lord knows, at least I was there,
And I'm here!
Look who's here!
I'm still here!"

-- Stephen Sondheim

"Quit alcohol now! Everything counts. You need to stop drinking... Because alcohol is addictive, has a lot of empty calories, and lowers your resistance to cigarettes, dope, and food".
-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up.

"[I had to] learn the difference between emotional and physical hunger... If I wanted more [to eat] I had to write down what else I wanted to eat. Next, I figured exactly what feeling was motivating this urge. Then... I had to wait one hour. If I still wanted the extra food, I could have it. Though I rarely still wanted it, all the scrawling and overthinking about what I could be consuming felt anal and ridiculous..."
-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up.

"The best year of our lives is not made up of days or weeks or months. It is made up of moments. Moments when we allow our separateness to melt away so we can be truly intimate with another; moments when we take a risk and express our love in an unexpected way; moments when we choose forgiveness over resentment; moments when we appreciate the perfection of where we are and who we are with. These are the moments that bring meaning to our lives and joy to our hearts."

-- Debbie Ford

"Let yourself know what you know."
-- Susan Shapiro, Lighting Up.

"Lost time is never found again."
-- Ben Franklin

"It is only a work of art. It has no purpose. It provides no symbol. It is just a work of art."
--Jeanne-Claude


Image of Christo and Jeanne-Claude from SwissInfo.Org.

"It is a long, billowy saffron ribbon meandering through Central Park -- not a neat bow, but something that's very much a gift package to New York City. "The Gates," by Christo and his wife, Jeanne-Claude, was officially unveiled yesterday.

"Thousands of swaths of pleated nylon were unfurled to bob and billow in the breeze. In the winter light, the bright fabric seemed to warm the fields, flickering like a flame against the barren trees. Even at first blush, it was clear that "The Gates" is a work of pure joy, a vast populist spectacle of good will and simple eloquence, the first great public art event of the 21st century. It remains on view for just 16 days. Consider yourself forewarned. Time is fleeting.

"On a partly sunny, chilly morning, with helicopters buzzing overhead and mobs of well-wishers on hand, an army of paid helpers gradually released the panels of colored fabric from atop the 16-foot-tall gates, all 7,500 of them. The shifting light couldn't have been better to show off the effects of the cloth. Sometimes the fabric looked deep orange; at other times it was shiny, like gold leaf, or silvery or almost tan. In the breeze, the skirted gates also appeared to shimmy like dancers in a conga line, the cloth buckling and swaying."

-- Michael Kimmelman, A Billowy Gift to the City, in a Saffron Ribbon, The New York Times, published February 13, 2005.


Image from Christian Science Monitor

"As far as I'm concerned, every New Yorker is born with the inalienable right to grow up going regularly to the theatre. After all, if a city is fortunate enough to house an entire theatre district, shouldn't access to the stage life within it be what makes coming of age in New York different from any other American city?"
-- Wendy Wasserstein

"The job is to ask questions - it always was - and to ask them as inexorably as I can. And to face the absence of precise answers with a certain humility."
-- Arthur Miller, 1915-2005, Playwright


Image from Today in Literature.

"My great-grandmother was your great-great-grandfather's mistress, so how about it?"
--Camilla Parker-Bowles, her reputed opening line to Prince Charles at a polo match in 1970.


Image from Church of Ireland Gazette.

"You have to get quiet and listen to yourself to really know what's right for you, rather than assuming that you know what's right."
-- Sharon Good.

"Baltimore is actually a very safe city if you are not involved in the drug trade."
-- Dr. Peter Beilenson, Baltimore's health commissioner, in The New York Times.

"You're setting the direction in which you want your life to go, but you have to let go of your attachment to the results - you can't set out with teeth clenched , making sure it happens exactly the way you imagine it will. It's like pointing a vehicle in the right direction. You may come to a crossroads and one way will be better than you envisioned - but you never would have gotten there if you hadn't set out."
-- Sharon Good

"If you set and achieve goals, you get what you want. If you don't, you live your life by default - you let things happen to you and you just react. You can start to feel like a victim. Moreover, you get bored and feel a sense of malaise."
-- Sharon Good, Life Coach, as quoted in Time Out New York.

"People may have concerns of another wardrobe malfunction, but I can safely tell you that I won't."
-- Sir Paul McCartney


Image from the BBC.

"We knew that every time we got a job and every time we were onstage, America was looking to make judgments about all black folks on the basis of how you looked, how you sounded, how you carried yourself. So any role you had was a role that was involved in the struggle for black identification. You couldn't escape it."
-- Ossie Davis, 1917-2005, as quoted in The New York Times.


Image from PBS.

"The confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general yesterday was depressing. The president deserves a great deal of leeway in choosing his own cabinet. But beyond his other failings, Mr. Gonzales has come to represent the administration's role in paving the way for the abuse and torture of prisoners by American soldiers and intelligence agents. Giving him the nation's top legal post is a terrible signal to send the rest of the world, and to American citizens concerned with human rights."
-- Editorial, The Senate and Mr. Gonzales, The New York Times.

"How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind."

-- Bob Dylan

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together."
-- Vincent Van Gogh

"To see and acknowledge the negative in a situation and embrace whatever positive is there­that is the true definition of courage".
-- Anonymous

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is hard to say that something is legitimate when whole portions of the country can't vote and doesn't vote."
-- Senator John Kerry, on Meet the Press, today.

"I have only just a minute,
Only sixty seconds in it.

"Forced upon me, can't refuse it.
Didn't seek it, didn't choose it.
But it's up to me
to use it.

"I must suffer if I lose it.
Give account if I abuse it.

"Just a tiny little minute,
but eternity is in it."

-- Anonymous

“I graduated from a special school. Auschwitz was the name. Four years I spent there... All my days were nights. Everything that was near and dear to me they took. There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself, and that is if the world forgets there was such a place.”
-- Henry Appel, Holocaust survivor, as quoted by Echt Emmy.

"Let me put this as bluntly as I can: There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history. Some people here must have a good thing to say about him, but I haven't met them yet."
-- Thomas L. Friedman, Op-ed piece titled Read My Ears, The New York Times

"Anytime we lose lives, it is a sad moment."
-- President George W. Bush, on the topic of a Marine Corps transport helicopter crashing in Iraq earlier today, and killing all 31 US marines aboard, marking the biggest single day loss of US troops since the 2003 invasion.


Image from MSNBC.

"To be yourself in a world that tries night and day, to make you just like everybody else, is to fight the greatest battle there ever is to fight and never stop fighting."
-- e. e. cummings

“I’ll be right back.”
-- Johnny Carson, 1925-2004, with the line he once said should be his epitaph, as quoted by Richard Severo in The New York Times.


(Image from TV Rundown).

"Either they believe in me, trust me, and are willing to take the risk that I will deliver success, or they don't. It's that simple. There's no haggling. I don't negotiate."
-- Michael Bloomberg, in his autobiography Bloomberg by Bloomberg.


Image from The City Review.

"A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water".
-- Carl Reiner

"You are what you eat, what you think and what you read."
-- Anonymous

"Traditionally the president's inaugural committee pays for these expenses; this time around it's stiffing the District of Columbia with a 12 million dollar security bill -- just their way of saying 'thank you' to the community that went nine-to-one for the president's opponent."
-- Jon Stewart, regarding security expenses for Bush's second inauguration, today.


Image from MTR.

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us."
-- Joseph Campbell

"You grab hold of one of those jobs, you don't want to let go."
-- Ruth Warrick, 1916-2005, in an obituary in the The New York Times by David Carr.


(Image from Gone Movies).

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
--Martin Luther King, Jr.


Image from CNN.

"As a personal fitness trainer, I have to leave the house at 5:30 a.m. to make my early-morning appointments. To get out the door more quickly, I have dedicated certain parts of my shelves to specific days of the week. When I remove things from my backpack at night, I place each item on the appropriate shelf (shown). If I won’t be seeing Monday’s client again until Thursday, her chart and equipment are placed in Thursday’s section. My wallet, transit card, and cell phone have a designated spot. I even have a “take care of me” bag, which contains sample-size cosmetics like hand lotion that I can apply during downtime or on the morning train."
--­ Michelle Adams, 46, Rahway, New Jersey in Real Simple.

"My husband, Steve, sets up his breakfast cereal before he goes to bed. He measures out water and kasha next to the stove so when he wakes up, all he has to do is dump the ingredients into the pot and light the flame. Even though it doesn’t take long to set up, it’s still one less thing he has to think about at 5:30, when he’s getting ready to leave the house".
­Erika Bleiberg, 44, Glen Ridge, New Jersey in Real Simple.

"Each night I write down no more than five things I want to accomplish the next day. This takes discipline, because it seems like I should be able to do so much more, but I know myself and how I work. And I know that I’ll be fielding phone calls and e-mails all day long. It’s psychological: If I get five out of 10 things done, I just get frustrated. But if I get five out of five, I’m batting a thousand."
— Tera Leigh, 39, Wrightwood, California in Real Simple.

"I am very sorry if I have caused any offense or embarrassment to anyone. It was a poor choice of costume and I apologize"
-- Prince Harry, in a statement.

"Tonight eat only half the dessert. And then go out and walk around the block. And if you are going to watch television get down and do 10 push-ups and five sit-ups."
-- Tommy Thompson, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, on new diet guidelines released yesterday.

"I have been here through good times and not so good times. I have seen us overcome adversity before... I am convinced we can do so again. That must be our focus and priority... Lest anyone have any doubt, I have read the report, I take it seriously, and I shall keep its lessons well in mind."
-- Dan Rather


Image from PBS.

"The Social Security scare is a standard Bush administration tactic: invent a fake crisis to get what you want."
-- Paul Krugman, The New York Times.