Our ascendancy of the past two centuries - first Europe and then the U.S. -

has bred a western-centric mentality: the West is the fount of all wisdom. We think of ourselves as open-minded, but our sense of superiority has closed our minds. We never entertained the idea that China could surpass the U.S.
Martin Jacques

From age nine, my friends and I were on the streets, walking home, going to each other's houses, going to the store. I really wanted to write about that: the independence that's a little bit scary but also a really positive thing in a lot of ways.
Rebecca Stead

I found myself at dusk in the bewitching Roman city of Jerash with H.M. Queen Rania of Jordan one year, and scrambling with hardened paparazzi to get an image of the Princess of Wales in a tiny Nepalese clinic in the foothills of the Himalayas another.
Hamish Bowles

My instinct is probably one of the strongest assets I've got, workwise.
Gina McKee

I didn't plan on going into show business. Show business picked me. And it's been fun. One of the best things about being in show business is people think they know me, and they feel like they grew up with me.
Vicki Lawrence

A book doesn't have to be a literary classic, of course, to change us forever.
Pico Iyer

We have a broad range of snackers - moms, kids and healthy active people.
Keith Belling

I hate this idea in the Cinematheque that you must watch silent movies with no music, like it's a piece of art. It's not true.
Arnaud Desplechin

I was on a path that could've really led to disaster, and the one thing for me that really kept me focused and gave me something to believe in and a sense of self-worth and a discipline was music.
Flea

I'm interested in internationalism. It's the new multiculturalism. How we deal with each other isn't sufficient any more. It's about time we examine how we interact with the rest of the world we live in.
David Henry Hwang

My life has become a reality show. When I am home, people are climbing trees with cameras. I feel that my personal space is being encroached upon. I will try and protect it as much as I can.
Ranbir Kapoor

Gemeoss

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts

me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. Helen Keller For me, unemployment and poverty in the Greater Montreal area is not mainly a problem of structure, or design, or statistics. It is a profoundly human situation. Kim Campbell Nature makes woman to be won and men to win. George William Curtis I'm pretty catholic about what constitutes science fiction. Frederik Pohl Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better. Laurie Anderson

The Marines in Korea never feared 'friendly fire' or artillery coming from the South Koreans

- from their allies - like they did later in Vietnam, fighting with the South Vietnamese. The Koreans could be trusted. David Douglas Duncan Diversifying our tech talent pool is an imperative for the tech sector. More diverse engineers and entrepreneurs will bring about a new type of innovation that Silicon Valley has yet to see. Mitch Kapor I'm not harmful, just introspective. You can probably think I'm weird, but it's not harmful weird. Henry Rollins They say Einstein died while he was still trying to figure out gravity. I think I'm going to die still trying to figure out some of the things about Blink. Tom DeLonge My mother reads tarot cards, actually, but I won't let her read mine. Sam Taylor-Johnson The 'Carousel' overture has always been one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. Kelli O'Hara I try to have the motto of living life with no regrets. Matt Flynn I general don't color my stuff - I'm pretty horrible with co...

It was impossible for me to believe that conditions in Europe could be worse than

they were in the Polish section of Chicago, and in many Italian and Irish tenements, or that any workshops could be worse than some of those I had seen in our foreign quarters. Alice Hamilton What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren't supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown - watch the raindrops coming down the window pane? Jackie Kennedy In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in this world, oppressed or oppressing, resigned or rebellious, a man among men. Charles Baudelaire In matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch Is offering too little and asking too much. The French are with equal advantage content, So we clap on Dutch bottoms just twenty per cent. George Canning Money is only useful when you get rid of it. It is like the odd card in 'Old Maid'; the player who is finally left with it has lost. Evelyn Waugh Life is ten percent what happens to yo...

I don't know the accident of still being married. I was the worst human being.

But we were, I guess, in love. So much has happened to us to bring us together and keep us together. Shelley Berman My first time overseas was taking 10,000 tons of beer to Vietnam. John F. Kelly In the beginning, I was riddled with major complexes about my looks. Even now, here and there, these complexes crop up. But as the days progressed, I learnt to handle them much better. Dhanush A lot of times, I don't want to listen to my stuff, because I'm thinking maybe I didn't do my best. Darius Rucker I don't feel that I'm particularly political. I'm interested in politics; I'll express my view if I feel strongly about something, but humanitarian issues, I think, are slightly different. Gary Lineker I was never drawn just into fashion. I was drawn into it because I am really interested in serving women and providing women with solutions, trying to figure out what we need and why we need that and why we wear stuff, how it makes us feel. That was al...

Red Carpet Enterprise has been really well received since one guy can install

it in about an hour, and it makes it trivial to deal with software management issues like deploying updates and creating standard package sets for your various machines. Nat Friedman Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps. William Blake Morality is a test of our conformity rather than our integrity. Jane Rule We should be as careful of the books we read, as of the company we keep. The dead very often have more power than the living. Tryon Edwards Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. Ralph Waldo Emerson

You can give men food and leisure and amusements and good conditions of work, and

still they will remain unsatisfied. You can deny them all these things, and they will not complain so long as they feel that they have something to die for. Christopher Dawson Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? Tom Lehrer This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes. Hannah Arendt I will fight for my children on any level so they can reach their potential as human beings and in their public duties. Princess Diana Rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof. Richard Bach

Is the minor convenience of allowing the present generation the luxury of doubling

its energy consumption every 10 years worth the major hazard of exposing the next 20,000 generations to this lethal waste? David R. Brower The democracy process provides for political and social change without violence. Aung San Suu Kyi The difference between an author and a horse is that the horse doesn't understand the horse dealer's language. Max Frisch When widows exclaim loudly against second marriages, I would always lay a wager than the man, If not the wedding day, is absolutely fixed on. Henry Fielding Men still have to be governed by deception. Georg C. Lichtenberg

Well, number one I like dancing. Number two I knew it would be

challenging because I had never done this type of dance before. I always wanted to and I happened to have the courage to go out there and give it my best shot. Evander Holyfield Take pleasure in your dreams; relish your principles and drape your purest feelings on the heart of a precious lover. Giotto di Bondone It is guaranteed to put all teeth on edge, including George Washington's, wherever they might be. Vincent Canby Time is what prevents everything from happening at once. John Archibald Wheeler I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day. Abraham Lincoln

Of all the species of literary composition, perhaps biography is the most delightful. The attention

concentrated on one individual gives a unity to the materials of which it is composed, which is wanting in general history. Robert Hall And I can't tell you how many women from a certain age group - they would be in their 30s now, 20s and 30s - tell me about how I was their role model when they were young girls. Lindsay Wagner We went to - I guess it was a legitimate boiler room, and I sat in front of this guy who literally was on the phone with two people at once. They call it double fisting. Giovanni Ribisi I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does not work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being. Theodore Roosevelt But I'm going to be a real good boy and take it day by day and try to concentrate on what's most important to me, and that's offering women a service. John Galliano An actor remembers his first piece of published praise. It is written on his heart. Conrad...

The two sensibilities, the visual and the verbal, have always been linked for me -

in fact, while reading a particularly evocative passage, I will imagine what the photograph I'd take of that scene would look like, even with burning and dodging notes. Maybe everyone does this. Sally Mann Hip-hop is the people. What the people are moving toward is what hip-hop is. I think people are moving toward a freer way of thinking. Openness. Erykah Badu I can't work in an environment where it's a stiff hierarchy; that's not my kind of way. Steven Rodney McQueen Tapas is a celebration of life. Jose Andres Everything I've written is based on something that has happened to me or something that I know a great deal about. Peter Benchley It was great being brought up in a Glasgow working-class tenement. It wasn't miserable, and it wasn't poverty stricken. It felt very safe, full of delights. Peter Capaldi The full thing is God-given. I don't know how I got my swing or what I did. I know I worked every single day. I know I did as much a...