I have always loved story - I escaped within it as a child, I read

every day, I love figuring out the complex layers of an author's work.
Kirsten Prout

I think my parents had in mind that I would settle down at quite a young age, but I decided that being a housewife in a big country house wasn't for me. I wanted to leave the country, head for London and see what the world had to offer.
Alison Jackson

In real life, I'd say that your commitment-phobe/narcissist/bad boy boyfriend is a lost cause, but romance is shelved in fiction for a reason.
Sarah MacLean

Writing in form is a way of developing your thinking - your thinking along with the tradition. In a way, it's not you alone, it's you in partnership.
Marilyn Nelson

Whenever you can manoeuvre your characters into a situation where they both have a good argument to make, you're on the right track.
Marc Guggenheim

My brother's my teacher, my mentor, and we both learnt all the acting basics from our father.
Jeff Bridges

America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity - the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.
Robert Kennedy

Developer testing is an important step towards accountability. It gives developers a way to demonstrate the quality of the software they produce.
Kent Beck

To me, cooking is man's natural activity. But I think writing is really hard. Certainly writing fiction is the hardest thing I've ever done.
Ruth Reichl

Real people are never central characters in my works.
Stephanie Laurens

I think there is something so compelling about the truth that whether you're a lawyer or judge or an actor, when you get at that truth, it connects with people on a particular level that I think makes your art more viable.
Sarah Jones

Gemeoss

There's this wonderful first assistant and he'll be saying, 'Now Harry goes down among the

dragons.' You have to hold yourself together. Because if you lose it for a second then you're sunk. Maggie Smith We believe we've got the skill base and the techniques to supply the chips that really enable the end manufacturers to develop exciting, innovative products themselves. David Milne Oscar Wilde said the rich and the poor are equal - they can both sleep under the bridge. Right? Do they have a right? You're damn right they have a right! Al Lewis If we'd have said we were not upset, they would have thought we were so rich it meant nothing to us, and if we say we're upset about it, they'll say money is all we care about. John Bonham We... are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant. Charley Reese Our universities and museums are respected around the country. Jane Byrne George W. Bush bought the election - period. End of story. There is no argument. Yo...

I was fortunate to have had a lively, happy childhood, but somewhere along the way

I convinced myself I wasn't wanted anywhere or by anyone if I wasn't thin. Lucy Davis WWE asked me to be in the Hall of Fame, and I turned it down. You know why? They put Pete Rose in the wrestling Hall of Fame. This guy can't even get into his own Hall of Fame. Mr. T Credit markets were originally created to serve human needs; to provide businesses and individuals with capital to start or expand businesses or fulfill other financial needs. Muhammad Yunus I'm not somebody who likes to show off my cleavage, and I don't dress up for the papers. Louise Nurding The reviewers tear me apart. I bleed. I'm a favorite target. They go along for six months looking at movies, praying for rain, and then a new Sandra Dee movie comes out, and their eyes open, and they lick their lips. Before they've ever seen it. Sandra Dee I personally do not find puke funny. I find it disgusting. Lucy Punch I don't live a lie. You have to understand that people who ...

I once interviewed David Herbert Donald, the Lincoln historian, and we talked about how one

deals with the secondary sources and the previous biographies. He said something which kept coming back to me as I worked on Cleopatra, which was: 'There's no further new material; there are only new questions.' Stacy Schiff Music - opera particularly - is a process which is endurable or successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate. Sarah Caldwell I tend to overthink things. I'm not the guy who screams 'This is a world smash!' when I finish a song. Bruno Mars You know, nobody can ever cook as good as your mama. Paula Deen Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them. George Savile I love being in a courtroom. Kamala Harris Passive fatalism can never be the role of a revolutionary party, like the Social Democracy. Karl Liebknecht Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time. Vic...

The more living patterns there are in a place - a room, a building, or

a town - the more it comes to life as an entirety, the more it glows, the more it has that self-maintaining fire which is the quality without a name. Christopher Alexander As far as loneliness, I feel Los Angeles and its layout, having to drive everywhere - it is a lonely place. It's an isolated city in that respect because you're driving to places alone listening to the radio. Jason Schwartzman I mean, people who say that the Tea Party isn't a grassroots movement, I think, are incorrect. I think in some respects, it is a grassroots movement. Matt Taibbi I see couples fighting about the stupidest things. You just have to rise above everything. Sammy Hagar Making choices that improve things for all of us on the planet is an act of compassion, a simple act we can do any time we go shopping. Daniel Goleman I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made. Hillary Clinton As a ki...

I think I mainly climb mountains because I get a great deal of enjoyment out

of it. I never attempt to analyze these things too thoroughly, but I think that all mountaineers do get a great deal of satisfaction out of overcoming some challenge which they think is very difficult for them, or which perhaps may be a little dangerous. Edmund Hillary I think in our global economy, uncertainty is ever increasing. So to accommodate to that, we need to build a dynamic economy and dynamic rules that can adapt to changing circumstances. Myron Scholes We don't have nannies and all that, we look after our own kids. It's just what you do. If you want a big family that's just what you do, isn't it? Ray Winstone Show me a better man. Name one and I am answered; but do not point, as a disqualification, to the very facts which make this man fit beyond all others. Roscoe Conkling I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man. B. B. King In reality there is no cause or effect, there is only the indiffer...

You find a lot of junk when you're searching through lost and tossed photo ephemera,

but every so often you'll find a gem, a wallet-sized masterpiece you're certain could hang on the wall of a gallery if only someone with a name had taken it. Find one or two of those and you're hooked for life. Ransom Riggs There is something magical in seeing what you can do, what texture and tone and colour you can produce merely with a pen point and a bottle of ink. Ida Rentoul Outhwaite I usually set aside a lot of time in advance of a movie with important roles for kids to search, but when you have great ones, they can be a real ace in the hole. Wes Anderson There aren't a lot of ironclad rules of family life, but here's one: No matter how much your parents deny it - and here's betting they deny it a lot - they have a favorite child. And if you're a parent, so do you. Jeffrey Kluger More recently, as faith gave way to materialism, anti-Semitism assumed a secular mode, harnessing itself to the dominant ideologies of both the Left and the Righ...

If you wish to draw off the people from a bad or wicked custom, you

must beat up for a march; you must make an excitement, do something that everybody will notice. Lewis Tappan The lawlessness of frontier life in America has been pictured as a remarkable phenomenon. In reality, it was the natural consequence of indiscriminate mixing of volatile substances. Paul Harris Cursed be he above all others Who's enslaved by love of money. Money takes the place of brothers, Money takes the place of parents, Money brings us war and slaughter. Anacreon I can't get my head around the fact that the technology of the first two movies, which are forty years prior to Star Wars, is so much better than any technology they had in Star Wars! David Prowse Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude. Denis Waitley The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty. Sophia Loren Experience ...

In his second Inaugural Address, on March 5, 1821, Monroe admitted at last to a

general depression of prices, but only as a means of explaining the great decline in the federal revenue. Despite this, he asserted that the situation of America presented a 'gratifying spectacle.' Murray Rothbard My mission is to support our service members. They're volunteers, and if they're going to go to a hostile place like Afghanistan, I think we owe it to them to back them up and try to help them get through it. Gary Sinise I lived in Cuba - I was there for one year in the 1950s. We built the famous nightclub, which is still there, Tropicana, and a restaurant, Montecatini, that I opened is still there. I was there when the U.S. ambassador said everyone must leave because Castro was arriving the next morning. Sirio Maccioni Facebook is looking to help you distribute content to who you want to distribute to. Facebook gets a lot better if you put each of your friends into either your 'close friend' or 'acquaintance' list. Robert Scoble I ...

While women certainly have made great strides toward pay parity in the past 30 years,

there is still a gap in earnings between men and women in equivalent professions. Ginny Brown-Waite I suddenly saw that all the time it was not I who had been seeking God, but God who had been seeking me. I had made myself the centre of my own existence and had my back turned to God. Bede Griffiths I like reading Ball Tongue lyrics and all that stuff. And they published a book, and I wouldn't give my lyrics, and it's all wrong in the book, and I giggle. It's funny. Jonathan Davis The bulk of my set is instrumental and you have to give yourself and the audience some relief because a performance is not about great guitar playing it's really about entertainment. Leo Kottke Put your nose into the Bible everyday. It is your spiritual food. And then share it. Make a vow not to be a lukewarm Christian. Kirk Cameron When I left school I was full of angst, like any teenager, and I channeled it all into comedy. Matt Lucas Some people obtain fame, others deserve ...

Warhol's images made sense to me, although I knew nothing at the time of his

background in commercial art. To be honest, I didn't think about him a hell of a lot. Barbara Kruger I visited the Chinese side last year. The Chinese are in a constant state of military readiness. They have all their nuclear weapons in the area, presumably trained on targets across the border. Harrison Salisbury The fundamental sense of freedom is freedom from chains, from imprisonment, from enslavement by others. The rest is extension of this sense, or else metaphor. Isaiah Berlin The upside to smoking is that you get to be social. I was looking for a light when I bumped into Ben Harper's manager. A couple of days later, Ben and I were in the studio. Beth Orton Today it is becoming harder to speak out, with the inception of the Patriot Act, the president has legislated free speech to be a crime. Frank Serpico I have only one eye, I have a right to be blind sometimes... I really do not see the signal! Horatio Nelson Truth is a thing immortal and perpetual, an...