"People never think anything is anything really"
-- J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

"Whores are a dime a dozen, but a good bookkeeper is hard to find."
-- Shelley Winters, Actress, The Balcony

"The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."
-- Elizabeth Taylor, Actress

"When I saw Manhattan, I wanted it..."
-- Quentin Crisp, The Slow Trip to Paradise

"Those who are not hopeless are worried that one day their lives will end. And, if you live long enough, of course, you long for it to end. That's been my desire in recent times. I only hope to become extinct. But before all that, you must try everything. Have children. Behave in such a way that monuments are built to you. Rule the world! Have streets and theaters named after you. Write your autobiography. These are ways to stay alive."
-- Quentin Crisp, What Does It Mean To Be Human, 1999.

"Your independence will not be compromised by intimacy."
-- Fortune Cookie

"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."
-- James Taylor

""We know that she'll be lively, alert, friendly, outgoing and HIV-positive. She'll be healthy, not sickly... We want to show children that it's okay to touch an HIV-positive person, okay to hug, that a person can still be a constructive part of the community."
-- Joel Schneider, vice president of Sesame Workshop, on the creation of an HIV+ Muppet for Sesame Street in South Africa, as quoted by Ananova.

"With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?...Even if he is still in the world, bin Ladenism has left for good. Mr. bin Laden was the public face of a brand of politics that committed suicide in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, killing thousands of innocent people in the process."
-- Amir Taheri, in an op-ed piece in today's New York Times.

"I'm amused when I hear people speak of Ronald Reagan with such reverence as this towering figure in history. When I knew him, he was a very ordinary guy whose biggest talent was his ability to read from a TelePrompTer. He looked good and articulate in front of the camera, but I couldn't see any substance behind that image."
-- Richard Widmark, Actor, as quoted by Liz Smith in her syndicated column.

"Set up as an ideal the facing of reality as honestly and as cheerfully as possible."
-- Dr. Karl Menninger

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it."
-- Garrison Keillor

"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
-- Jules de Gaultier

"Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs."
-- Lily Tomlin

"Klaatu Barada Nikto"
-- Gort, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Twentieth Century Fox, 1951.

"I'm a mother pheasant plucker. I pluck mother Pheasants. I'm the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker, that ever plucked a mother pheasant."
-- Unknown

"We are all born naked and screaming and if you're lucky that sort of thing won't stop there..."
-- Unknown

"Middle age is when you've met so many people that every new person you meet reminds you of someone else."
-- Ogden Nash

"Birthdays are good for you. The more you have, the longer you live..."
-- Unknown

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
-- Abraham Lincoln

"I want to focus on my salad."
-- Martha Stewart, on CBS Early Show, when the host wanted to discuss the IMCLONE scandal, during a cooking spot.

"So we're left with a system that is fine for turning out bicycle messengers, and absolutely terrific at preparing kids for Rikers Island. It's great to have a governor that cares about standards."
-- Bob Herbert, in The New York Times, July, 1, 2002, Editorial on the state of the New York City public school system.

"Love your neighbors. It's a great world, and you can make it better...."
-- President Bill Clinton, at Stuyvesant High School Graduation, NYC, June, 2002.

"What is the name of your first pet? What is the first street you ever lived on? Combine the two and you get your porn name."
-- Promotion flyer for the upcoming Steven Soderbergh movie.

"If you want to do easy things where you can't fail and don't run any risks, I think the satisfaction and contribution are low. If you want to take on things that everybody says are impossible but everybody agrees we desperately need, that's the great challenge."
-- Michael Bloomberg, Mayor, on taking over the NYC school system.

"The language is atrocious... so much 'A-S-S'... I know what a bottom is!"
-- Sylvia Myer