A common defense among obituary-fanciers such as myself is that the obit is not about

death at all. It is about life. This is true since an article about the condition of deadness would make for turgid reading at best.
Tom Rachman

The thing about being an outsider... is that it teaches you to hear what people are thinking because you're constantly looking for the people who just don't give a damn.
Mike Nichols

Do it, do it right, pay close attention to the product, and over time, you will win.
Mickey Drexler

Labor has a proud history of tackling discrimination and introducing important social reform.
Lara Giddings

When I was a child, it was cool to be a scientist.
Michio Kaku

I have always loved blizzards, if only because of the driving experience - which is definitely an acquired taste.
Hunter S. Thompson

If you just, pretty much, take a random 15-month-old, just sit and watch them for 10 minutes and count out how many experiments, how much thinking you see going on, and it will put the most brilliant scientist to shame.
Alison Gopnik

Chemistry is so important and so unpredictable. Sometimes you get in a room with someone where aesthetically you make perfect sense as a couple, and then you read, and you're both kind of sitting there like, 'This isn't working for some strange reason; it just doesn't really pop.'
Margot Robbie

For many years, we have repeated that the direct-to-consumer channel is growing and capturing a larger share of our customers' wallet.
Richard Hayne

I wasn't predicted to be anything. I just followed an inner spirit, and it put me in the right place and the right time. I didn't want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I didn't want to run for Congress. I didn't want to work for Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted to work close to him and be a writer and write about the movement.
Andrew Young

Gemeoss

I have not made any suggestions about climate change. This is more about blending or

shifting the conversation about the environment versus the economy. It's just such an old, outdated conversation. Jennifer Granholm Sometimes shooting on a smaller scale, as long as things don't blow out of proportion, is very liberating. Daniel Craig Because I'm so known as a meat-chef, when I talk about Meatless Monday some people look at me like I've lost my mind. I'm like, look, I'm not saying beef and pork is bad, I love it and I eat it six days a week. Michael Symon I think character is permanent, and issues are transient. James Stockdale It is true that I was born in Iowa, but I can't speak for my twin sister. Pauline Phillips I came from a town of maybe 30,000 people. Jim Caviezel The rights of homosexual people are human rights, and human rights are for everyone. Ricky Martin I'm pretty much honest to a fault. It's my best and my worst quality. Jennifer Westfeldt I loved Australia. I was very successful there. Todd B...

I've gone through that with my mother and father and here I was in a

similar situation. I've wronged her and I've wronged the family. Because when these things happen, it doesn't just happen to you, it happens to the people around you and the family. John Prescott Before I was an actor I was a break dancer, one of those street performers you see. I guess my introduction into the professional world of performing was a stint as back up dancer for Lionel Richie and I performed at the closing ceremony at the '84 Olympics. Cuba Gooding, Jr. Frank Morley, who had worked in London at Faber and Faber, was the new head of Harcourt Brace, and he hired me to start in 1940. The early years at Harcourt were wonderful. Almost my first assignment was Virginia Woolf's novel 'Between the Acts.' Robert Giroux I suspect that many corporations have begun to understand that they have an important role to play in the lives of their communities, and that allocating funds to support local groups helps them discharge that function and also b...

I feel my work is made for one being, one individual. You could say that's

me, but that's not really true. It's for an idealized viewer. James Turrell The only thing we know for sure about superiority in sports in the United States of America in the 20th century is that Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics teams he led stand alone as the ultimate winners. Frank Deford I love yoga. There's a lot of stretching involved, which helps with my flexibility and injury prevention. Vinyasa is my favorite as a recovery tool and for me to continue having my legs feel good. Alex Morgan When you get on the back side of your 60s, most people aren't working. Tom Petty God doesn't give you more than you can handle. Leanne Caret For as long as I can remember, I've just loved Chanel. Lily-Rose Depp I always dreamed of going to the Olympics. To be going to the Games in your own country is another thing; to do it as a potential medallist is another thing again. Hannah Mills To me, Berlin is as much a conceit as a reality. Why? Because t...

The New Testament is of full authority and open to the understanding of simple men

as to the points most needful to salvation. John Wycliffe It's funny, because there are so many stereotypes out there about actors and movie stars in general, but I've had a great opportunity to meet a lot of them, and maybe it's just because they don't behave that way around me, but I rarely see that kind of abuse of power. Ryan Reynolds At the suggestion of Professor Itaru Watanabe, and with his help, I left Japan at the age of twenty-three to pursue graduate study at the University of California at San Diego. Susumu Tonegawa Not everybody is a great rapper; not everybody lives for the art of lyricism. Wale From my perspective, I absolutely believe in a greater spiritual power, far greater than I am, from which I have derived strength in moments of sadness or fear. That's what I believe, and it was very, very strong in the forest. Jane Goodall You must make some decisions Wall Street dislikes. Nelson Peltz Debt, we've learned, is the match th...

I worked with Ismail Merchant on 'The Mystic Masseur,' I did 'Sakina's Restaurant,' I've done

plays, I've been on Broadway, I've done movies, I've done TV... but nothing has had the pop culture penetrative impact as 'The Daily Show' has. It's the nature of the beast. Aasif Mandvi Pakistan will never be able to match the Indian militarily, and the effort to do so is taking an immense toll on the society. Noam Chomsky There is a difference between executive producing and producing. Producing, you have no life for two years. You take everything personally, you want to kill everyone, you're depressed and angry, and then in the end you feel excited when it actually works. But executive producing, you can go home at the end of the day. Sandra Bullock One of the things you can always depend on - this is one of the truths of the universe, and you heard it first from here - whatever we decide we want to do is what we do. Morgan Freeman My dream is to be able to make something in Baltimore that's just there. Make a movie or make a show there. I...

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society

that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll. Joshua Oppenheimer Someone once accused me of slumming. I don't know what that means. I play basketball. And through that, I get to see a world that is not smart-kid world. Nick McDonell My father had a piano that was a nickelodeon - put a nickel, and the roller would play. Frank Sinatra As a child, I spent a lot of time at the library. Tracy Chapman It's such a cliche thing to say. I want to choreograph, I want to direct, I want to act, I want to write music, I want to play music, I want to sing. For me, it's never-ending. I want to do it all, really. Derek Hough Before someone can change his ideas, he has to open his heart. Maajid Nawaz In the IPL, you are often single-handedly responsible for the fortunes of your team. It makes you more ...

I don't really know why I'm so busy, but I like it. Sometimes I think

I need to slow down. And then I'm even busier! Brianna Brown Frankie is my baby. He is the sweetest dog in the world. Frankie is like the son I never had. He keeps me healthy; I walk and run him. I always feel that I need to spend more time with him and give him more attention. I find myself unloading my emotions on him. Esai Morales There are so many ways to characterize evolutionary success. If one criterion is the number of millions of years that the species persists, we're still just infants. We're way too young of a species to tell if we were a creative fluke or if we have any staying power. Greg Graffin I'm an Irish-American, and I grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood. William Devane The people who are the most successful in life are not stopped by fear. Iman One song I do is 'The First Cut is the Deepest.' I try to remind people I wrote that song, not Rod Stewart. Cat Stevens Little do we find any Phoenician architecture or plastic ...

I was not good at team sports, I have to say. I'm quite good at

individual sports, but I was not good at team sports, so I wasn't good at baseball and football. Tom Ford I think sports are a wonderful diversion. People can relate to sports very easily. It's a quick study. William Clay Ford, Sr. The fight against child slavery is the fight against traditional mindset, policy deficit, and lack of accountability and urgency for children across the globe. Kailash Satyarthi I worship God. Religion and worship are two different things to me. Religion is by the book. I think too many people rely on the textbook: 'OK, it says to do this and it says to do that, so if I do this, this, and that, then I still can go out and do wrong because I did this, this, and that.' Eve I find it fascinating that sport has such a strong connection to success in business. Arguably, C-suite women are some of the most successful women, and more than half of them played at a more advanced level than just the general population of women in business th...

I was always kind of a loudmouth and a class clown, and that kind of

led to doing all the school plays and trying out all kinds of different stuff. Dustin Milligan Unlike other loans, a reverse mortgage doesn't have to be repaid until the borrower moves out of the home or passes away. Jean Chatzky A good litmus test is that you should be comfortable with your significant other being present when you hang out with your friend. Olivia Wilde When I was younger, I read all the great food memoirs, by M.F.K. Fisher and Laurie Colwin and Julia Child and Nicolas Freeling and Ruth Reichl, and felt flooded with a sense of comfort and safety. Kate Christensen When you're undocumented, you're supposed to keep your head down and be quiet and pay taxes, social security - even though people don't know that we do those things - and not say anything. Jose Antonio Vargas I loved everything that went with rock n' roll. I loved being at the heart of such creativity and being young in such a stimulating and exciting era. Pattie Boyd Whi...

Everybody out there watches the show and has expectations of wanting to be an 'Idol',

but we're going to teach them how much hard work goes into it. Bo Bice As an example, one of the schools I have been studying is too small to compete effectively in most sports, but participates with vigor each year in the state music contests. James S. Coleman Randy said I could call him for anything, Paula said that she loved me and said how much of a star I was. Simon was like, keep up the good work and I'll have nothing to worry about. LaToya London When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it. Trent Reznor I've learned a huge amount because I've been tested and, more importantly, I've been trusted. Pete Townshend I was a little self-centered gutter punk in the early 1980s and all I wanted to do was diss everybody. Anthony Kiedis Noah and his family were the only loyal and obedient subjects to the legal power: they alone were saved. Orson Pratt I am so thrilled by the privilege of lif...