Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Most people who know Cuba think Raul [Castro] would like to make more changes but has not done so yet because his brother, who is ideologically opposed to them, is still alive. What he will do when Fidel dies remains to be seen.
But in this country we have one great privilege which they don't have in other countries. When a thing gets to be absolutely unbearable the people can rise up and throw it off. That's the finest asset we've got - the ballot box.
Morals are not the important thing-nor enlightenment-nor civilization. A man can do absolutely well without them, but he can't do without something to eat. The supremest thing is the need of the body, not of the mind and spirit.
Ugly reports and conversations are always available to those who would promote the sordid and sensational. None of us are yet perfect. We each have failings that aren't terribly difficult to detect especially if that is the aim.
A willingness to practice patience. Patience in communication is that certain ingredient of conduct we hope others will exhibit toward us when we fail to measure up. Our own patience is developed when we are patient with others.
The age looks steadily to the redressing of wrong, to the righting of every form of error and injustice; and a tireless and prying philanthropy, which is almost omniscient, is one of the most hopeful characteristics of the time.
In moments of despair, we look on ourselves lead-enly as objects; we see ourselves, our lives, as someone else might see them and may even be driven to kill ourselves if the separation, the "knowledge," seems sufficiently final.
I am feeling fine. I remember these words and recite them. These are the things you say when asked how you are. After all, it would be odd to say: I'm not feeling. Or, more to the point: I'm not, I have ceased to be. Where am I?
People minus space equals Poverty ... What is living for? If the answer is a life of dignity, decency and opportunity, then every increase in population means a decrease in all three. The crowd is a threat to every single being.
At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time.
Sarah Palin is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the modern United States. As a representative of our political system, she's a new low in reptilian villainy, the ultimate cynical masterwork of puppeteers like Karl Rove.
2008 was to the American economy what 9/11 was to national security. Yet while 9/11 prompted the U.S. government to tear up half the Constitution in the name of public safety, after 2008, authorities went in the other direction.
If anybody understands God's order for his children, it's someone who has rescued an orphan from despair, for that is what God has done for us. God has adopted you. God sought you, found you, signed the papers and took you home.
I firmly believe that the purpose of life is not this life. It is to equip us, whatever our role is going to be in the next life. And understanding God's story is really where I find the significance and purpose in my own story.
If you're serious, you really understand that it's important that you laugh as much as possible and admit that you're the funniest person you ever met. You have to laugh. Admit that you're funny. Otherwise, you die in solemnity.
When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.
I've had people explain to me what one of my poems meant, and I've been surprised that it means that to them. If a person can use a poem of mine to interpret her life or his life, good. I can't control that. Nor would I want to.
I just am a person who loves houses. In a way, it's dovetailed into one of the themes of The Unspeakable: Why do you have to change? Why don't you just accept that this is how you are? Why do you have to grow from an experience?
I always thought of vampires, especially the young-adult ones, as a metaphor for sex - sucking blood, forbidden, taboo. I think they just ooze sex. Vampires are all the big themes in life in one attractive, bloodsucking package.
Christianity is not a system of philosophy, nor a ritual, nor a code of laws; it is the impartation of a divine vitality. Without the way there is no going, without the truth there is no knowing, without life there is no living.
Moby Dick - that book is so amazing. I just realized that it starts with two characters meeting in bed; that's how my book begins, too, but I hadn't noticed the parallel before, two characters forced to share a bed, reluctantly.
I work at night, starting at around 10 o'clock and working until 2 or 3 in the morning. I do that usually five days a week. In Berkeley, I have an office behind our house that I share with my wife, who works more in the daytime.
I watched 'Kojak' religiously with my father. It was a great bonding time. He loved shows where the stakes were high. Life and death, justice prevailing, things like that. I think that helped set me on the path to what I do now.
My job is to explain stuff you don't know or already know and have to unlearn. My job is to teach you stuff you don't know that you need to know, stuff you should know. I'm going to take what you already know and re-describe it.
It is one thing to seek out new ways to grow your company and new potential streams of income from new services or products, but it is quite another to take on responsibilities that are far from your primary job as Entrepreneur.
How many times do we pay for one mistake? The answer is a thousand times for the same mistake. The human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for ONE mistake. The rest of the animals pay once for every mistake.
When you make it a strong habit not to take anything personally, you avoid many upsets in your life. Your anger, jealousy, and envy will disappear, and even your sadness will simply disappear if you don't take things personally.
Children of the mentally ill learn early on how not to be a bother, especially if they grew up with neglect. As my sister insisted once, when she was in severe pain after injuring her ankle, 'This isn't me! This is not who I am!
It’s a lovely adaptation that honors Lois Lowry’s vision and authority…the film…illuminates and explores the beauty, danger and pain of our free, creative lives. Plenty to talk about in families and other communities. Go see it.
I also believe that parents, if they love you, will hold you up safely, above their swirling waters, and sometimes that means you'll never know what they endured, and you may treat them unkindly, in a way you otherwise wouldn't.
The genius of the American Founders was to create an intricate system of balanced powers both within the state and between state and society - a system that has fostered unprecedented political, social, and intellectual freedom.
It's hard to describe why one room and not another feels right for writing. Of course you have to train yourself to be able to write anywhere, but it's nice to feel that each book has a place that belongs to it, where it's home.
Our culture is a capitalist society right? And so in order to always have the idea of the good life, means something you pay money for. Think of being outside of what you have and own, it always has to be receiving a difference.
I was in Afghanistan and then obviously in Iraq. And I realized that you can't control life. You can do a lot to prepare. You can train, and at the end of the day there's an element that's always going to be beyond your control.
Masters are those who have chosen only love. In every instance. In every moment. In every circumstance. Even as they were being killed, they loved their murderers. Even as they were being persecuted, they loved their oppressors.
Smiling can be a deliberate, intentioned act. When it is that, it becomes an act of creation, and a powerful tool. Be quick to smile, and quick to share your smile with others. You will light up your heart and light up the room.
If you think God looks only one way or sounds only one way or is only one way, you're going to look right past Me night and day. You'll spend your whole life looking for God and not finding Her. Because you're looking for a Him.
Thought is the first level of creation. Next comes the word. Everything you say is a thought expressed. It is creative and sends forth creative energy into the universe. Words are the second level of creation. Next comes action.
I was writing the kind of comic that would make me, at age 26 or 27, go down to a comic book store every month and spend my $2. That was my starting point. I wanted to write a comic that I would read. And that's still my agenda.
When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.
I love the auditioning process. I love working with the technical guys. I absolutely love the editing room. That was completely fascinating to me, working with an editor in crafting the thing into something you had in your head.
I once read that you die because you see the Angel of Death, and you fall in love. And you fall in love so hard your soul is sucked out through your eyes, and that's the moment of death. It's a lovely, strange old Jewish legend.
If you're going to make a big wave, you have to be totally unified with everything that's happening... Maybe in the moment of having to know everything all at once you burst through the barriers of trying to put things in order.
In one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home.
If you love someone, when it's the most real, the most important thing in your life, it's not enough to coast. You need to dig in those footers, start building on that base. You want something to last, you put your back into it.
i had that hole in me. that empty space...she put it in me, you filled it...she was part of my life. you are my life. if i have a regret, it,s that even for an instant you could think otherwise. or that i allowed you to. -Roarke
It does not make you less of a woman to need a man. To need one to exist, yes, this is nonsense. To need one to give one scope and importance, this is dishonest. But to need a man, one man, to bring joy and passion? This is life
Lots of people limit their possibilities by giving up easily. Never tell yourself this is too much for me. It's no use. I can't go on. If you do you're licked, and by your own thinking too. Keep believing and keep on keeping on.
I feel that anyone can do farming. But people who are in it for the long haul have to have a little bit of tenacity. You have to do it because you love it, not because it's cool, because there will be moments when it's not cool.
Life isn't as magical here, and you're not the only one who feels like you don't belong, or that it's better somewhere else. But there ARE things worth living for. And the best part is you never know what's going to happen next.