Fiction's essential activity is to imagine how others feel, what a Saturday afternoon in an

Italian town in the 2nd Century looked like. My ambition is solely to get some effect, as of light on stone in a forest on a September day.
Guy Davenport

There's a huge latent market for software development that's just flat-out honest.
Kent Beck

I don't think a reporter necessarily becomes an arm of law enforcement. I think a reporter is like any other citizen. If a citizen can do his or her duty as a witness, if they have information about a crime, or if they have information about a criminal group, I think that there's a duty on the part of the citizen.
Edwin Meese

The notion of the infinite variety of detail and the multiplicity of forms is a pleasing one; in complexity are the fringes of beauty, and in variety are generosity and exuberance.
Annie Dillard

I am fortunate that I get sent scripts and get to meet people I would never have met had I not done 'Harry Potter.' But I feel I had to come out of that show and prove that I am not a one trick pony and can do other stuff.
Matthew Lewis

I've done all these historical epics and chivalrous roles, but there's an odder, quirkier side to me that nobody knows about.
Orlando Bloom

You always want to come back with an image that's interesting visually, and you hope to get something from the person you photograph that's different than other images you know of these people.
Anton Corbijn

I teach a lecture course on American poetry to as many as 150 students. For a lot of them, it's their only elective, so this is their one shot. They'll take the Russian Novel or American Poetry, so I want to give them the high points, the inescapable poets.
Robert Hass

I try not to put messages in my songs. My only message is man's communication with his fellow man. I want to narrow the gap of strangeness and alienation.
Rod McKuen

My parents were both storytellers. They always spoke with metaphorical richness.
Alice Walker

Don't ever criticize yourself. Don't go around all day long thinking, 'I'm unattractive, I'm slow, I'm not as smart as my brother.' God wasn't having a bad day when he made you... If you don't love yourself in the right way, you can't love your neighbour. You can't be as good as you are supposed to be.
Joel Osteen

Gemeoss

I made a Christmas album a couple of years ago and just put it out

on my Web site. It kind of smacked of this flavor. All of the reviews said it was Western swing even when it was Christmas standards. Suzy Bogguss Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown. William Shakespeare To be a good draftsman was to me a blessing. John James Audubon As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two. Norman Wisdom Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives. Louise L. Hay We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism. Huey Newton Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape. Frank Moore Colby

'No Child Left Behind' requires states and school districts to ensure that all

students are learning and are reaching their highest potential. Special education students should not be left out of these accountability mechanisms. Dianne Feinstein You couldn't have done this without killing an Arab prince. Michael Scheuer I'm a horrible public speaker. Bill Condon Both mind and heart when given up to reveries and dreaminess, have a thousand avenues open for the entrance of evil. Charles Simmons The last suit that you wear, you don't need any pockets. Wayne Dyer It is great wealth to a soul to live frugally with a contented mind. Lucretius How can you practice dancing in an airplane? There's a law against it. George Murphy

'The Golden Compass' became a bad experience because the studio didn't have faith in the

strength of the ideas of the novel, which is ironic because it's one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written, if not the greatest, and they took the religion out of it and tried to turn it into a popcorn movie. Chris Weitz If I feel strongly, I say it. I know I can do more good by being vocal than by staying quiet. I'd have a whole lot more money if I lied, but I wouldn't enjoy spending it. Martina Navratilova I saw Ronnie Hawkins play near my hometown, Port Dover, Ontario, and I saw him play there on New Year's Eve and the following spring I booked myself to be his opening act on maybe five shows, and he hired me after the first night. Rick Danko You sort of have to become what you're wearing. Pharrell Williams I believe in status symbols. Brooks Stevens The path that went by the little house had become a road. Almost every day Laura and Mary stopped their playing and stared in surprise at a wagon slowly creaking by on that road. Laura Ingalls W...

That's where I got my start and where I'll continue to work, but I can't

tell you the number of films between Drugstore Cowboy and Curly Sue that I auditioned for and wanted that didn't choose me. Kelly Lynch I haven't spoken English with native speakers in several months. I've been speaking Arabic. John Walker Lindh Today you can't go by the titles of the shows to know what the content of the show may be. Donna Douglas It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in. Friedrich Schiller We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it. Willie Nelson We all want peace. Unfortunately, there are times when peace must be defended by fighting terror and tyranny. James H. Douglas, Jr. It is hard to say why politicians are called servants, unless it is because a good one is hard to find. Gerald F. Lieberman

I really want to move away from the old model in which you have to

rely on people giving $10 after a humanitarian crisis to a newer model where people give money but also their time and their skills, whatever they have, to the causes that are personally meaningful to them well before the crisis moment presents itself. Chris Hughes At one time, I was persuaded to want to make music, and people answered me that that was not possible. Yannick Noah Soldiers of the American Revolution fought that 18th century war with heavy muskets. In the early 20th century, we kids fought it every Fourth of July not only with exploding powder and shimmering flares, but with all of our senses. Paul Engle Strength does not have to be belligerent and loud. Russell Brand You don't have to invent the wheel, but you might want to be the company that invents the rims. MC Hammer The power which money gives is that of brute force; it is the power of the bludgeon and the bayonet. William Cobbett Men need to live and breathe women. Adam Levine I am a lover ...

The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax

was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. Alan Keyes In the time honored tradition of email, just ignore the question. John Dobbin The universe extends beyond the mind of man, and is more complex than the small sample one can study. Kenneth L. Pike All the efforts of the human mind cannot exhaust the essence of a single fly. Thomas Aquinas Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it. Wayne Dyer A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language. W. H. Auden I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection. Sigmund Freud

We don't consider the battle has ended in Afghanistan... The battle has begun and its

fires are picking up. These fires will reach the White House, because it is the center of injustice and tyranny. Mohammed Omar Clean living is the cardinal principle in the lives of the world's greatest athletes, as the phenomenal performances of these outstanding characters will obviously show. Major Taylor Additionally, borrowing a page from U.S. foreign policy, I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile. Timothy McVeigh I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other. Napoleon Bonaparte There is no philosophy which is not founded upon knowledge of the phenomena, but to get any profit from this knowledge it is absolutely necessary to be a mathematician. Daniel Bernoulli If they tell the police, the police will find out she was driving, and her career will be put into hell. Nicholas Mosley The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hang...

It was psychobabbler Abraham Maslow who wrote of the phenomena of self-actualization. What Maslow failed

to grasp is that reaching true self-actualization can only be ultimately achieved when you have your own brand of ammunition. Ted Nugent We're under some gross misconception that we're a good species, going somewhere important, and that at the last minute we'll correct our errors and God will smile on us. It's delusion. Farley Mowat Not far from our house, and opposite the old church with the golden cross, stood a large building, even larger than the church, and having many towers. Max Muller Honestly, I'm not a massive fan of courtroom dramas. Gabriel Macht First fight. Then fiddle. Gwendolyn Brooks I can't imagine the right wing trying to unite without my participation. Lech Walesa I honestly wondered how on earth I would manage to combine work and motherhood. Zoe Tapper When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive. Henry Rollins Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore. Alan Bennett Everything about mediocrity...

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 probably haven't even seen ten of the films I've done. I don't get a

joy out of it, and I don't go to the movies. Robert Sean Leonard I can't switch time zones any more. London is one of my favourite places, but I'm always so zonked that I can't appreciate it. It's like a six-inch sheet of glass between me and Charing Cross Road. Douglas Coupland My job is to let everybody know what I stand for and to let my light shine. I want to show others the way I live so that hopefully they follow. I can also tell about my experiences as a Christian so that I may help bring others to Christ. LaDainian Tomlinson Most interviewers are looking for a headline. They're not skilled. They're looking for shock value. Ice T If we admit it or not, skiing is a little bit of show biz. Willy Bogner, Jr. The more time you invest in a marriage, the more valuable it becomes. Amy Grant Involvement in Afghanistan, I thought, was totally warranted. We were attacked, we attacked back, but after six months of being in Afghanistan, I though...