We can't control whether we are rewarded for our endeavours, with cash or recognition. It

is not up to us how much cash or time we get on Earth, but it is down to us how we spend it.
Julian Baggini

Obviously I'm not a violent person; I don't like violence, but I would definitely go into defending myself if the situation arose.
Michelle Ryan

I could be a lot happier. I could be the senator from Aerospace taking bribes, and be quite happy.
Gore Vidal

I immerse myself in everything I write; I feel what my characters do. I suffer with them. I cry as I type, sometimes to the point that I can't see the screen.
Ann Aguirre

The lifelong goal of an improviser is to listen to what the other person is saying, taking it in, and responding.
Ali Farahnakian

The great majority of Baghdad is a slum - a lot of it's new, but it's still slum. It's usually this concrete-block, one-room design with a door and a window, arranged one-up, one-down, often with a shop with nothing in it on the first floor, and then a one-room apartment above it. There's street after street after street of that stuff.
P. J. O'Rourke

Happy accidents are real gifts, and they can open the door to a future that didn't even exist. It's kind of nice sometimes to set up something to encourage or allow happy accidents to happen.
David Lynch

'Bunk' is a comedy game show where, each week, three of my favorite comedians compete in a series of bizarre and meaningless challenges all for my entertainment. Ethan T. Berlin and Eric Bryant created 'Bunk.'
Kurt Braunohler

Whatever you may be thinking when you apply for a job today, you can be sure the employer is asking this: Can this person add value every hour, every day - more than a worker in India, a robot or a computer? Can he or she help my company adapt by not only doing the job today but also reinventing the job for tomorrow?
Thomas Friedman

I was very unfamiliar with YouTube; I thought it was the place for dog and cat videos.
Lindsey Stirling

I don't want to write about violence, and I don't want to hang a plot on a murder. I think it's cheap.
Alice McDermott

Gemeoss

Urban Outfitters - I love it. It's almost like Forever 21, but for, like, the

24- to 25-year-old girl, getting a little bit older. Keke Palmer I'm the kind of person that believes that I would like to be evaluated by my entire career and my entire life, not two words that I would misspeak and then later apologize for. Kirk Cameron I often feel a discomfort, a kind of embarrassment, when I explain elementary-particle physics to laypeople. It all seems so arbitrary - the ridiculous collection of fundamental particles, the lack of pattern to their masses. Leonard Susskind Around age 11 or 12, I started playing jazz bass. From there, I went to electric bass and then guitar, which I kept up for a long time. Joshua Roman Space X's Elon Musk wants to colonize Mars with modules where earthlings can live. My teleporting technology is the number one way those individuals will get new information, new treatments of diseases that will occur on the planet, and new food sources. Craig Venter Brain cells are normally not sensitive to light. So by introdu...

In the next couple of years, part of every film's process is going to be

to adjust the images. And it'll be to change the color of an actor's tie or change the little smirky thing he's doing with his mouth. Or you can put in more clouds or move the tree a little bit. Robert Zemeckis There's a high school in Camden, New Jersey, I call the Jill Scott School. It's the Camden Creative Arts High School. Those teachers and kids are so passionate about what they do, and 98 percent of the senior class went on to college. Jill Scott I spent a good deal of time going back over my childhood, my midlife, to try to understand who I was. We're supposed to be complete and whole, and you can't be whole if you're trying to be perfect. Doing a life review helped me get over the disease to please. Jane Fonda For over a year I continued to submit mss, and have them rejected - the last few with rejection letters indicated the story was pretty good, but I was American. Nora Roberts Well, you know I have an office, my film offices. So I...

In the morning, I have certain aspirations. One of my goals is to avoid looking

at the computer or checking e-mail for at least an hour after I wake up. I also try to avoid alarm clocks as much as possible, because it's just nice to wake up without one. Matt Mullenweg At Sequoia, upwards of a hundred entrepreneurs a week present, and if we're lucky, maybe a dozen of them are focusing on the enterprise. Jim Goetz I've never seen a world where only men were responsible for the violence, and the women were innocent. They go together. Men and women are a violent mixture. Claire Denis I don't feel a real need to specify the meaning of something. When I was little and I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, I didn't know what a zeppelin was or who Zeppelin was or what the machine was. The real meaning is whatever feelings and memories you attach to the music. Kyp Malone St. Louis sprawls where mighty rivers meet - as broad as Philadelphia, but three stories high instead of two, with wider streets and dirtier atmosphere, over the dull-brown of w...

For years I've been seeing my young brothers wearing Scarface T-shirts, John Gotti T-shirts, Rick

James T-shirts. We don't have any icons or idols to look up to, just rappers and professional athletes. Lamar Odom As I was writing, I realised I wasn't sufficiently extrovert to gather enough interesting souls with tall tales around me. I was no Louis Theroux. But neither was I interested in exploring my inner life in public, in the manner of a Jonathan Raban. Clive Sinclair I don't know the literary world; I was scared of being confronted with famous names, not knowing what they had written. It was occupied territory I was entering. John le Carre I want to be a chef, but I'm only a fat girl chef; like, I only like to make fat comfort food. I'm not, like, a healthy chef person. Khloe Kardashian At the heart of the Irish economy has always been the philosophy of tax competitiveness. On the cranky left, that is very annoying; I can see that. Bono What matters is being a particular kind of person. At the most basic level, it matters that you are the kin...

I'm a spokesman for myself. It just so happens that there's a bunch of people

that are concerned with what I have to say. I find that frightening at times because I'm just as confused as most people. I don't have the answers for anything. Kurt Cobain I've written a lot about southern California, but I don't use the same characters. Leave the people in the songs in the songs, is my philosophy. John Darnielle The music, for me, doesn't come on a schedule. I don't know when it's going to come, and when it does, I want it out. Prince I've been super impressed with what BuzzFeed has done on Facebook with inspiring list posts and on Twitter with political scoops, but YouTube is a giant social platform that has its own quirks and oddities and will require some new approaches. Ze Frank Writing by myself, I spread that out more. I'll spend more time on a song then. I'm more critical about it, because there's no one else in the room to tell me, 'That's really not translating. I'm not getting what you'...

It's one thing to say you're for the war; it's another thing to send your

kid to war - your daughter or your son. Tim O'Brien When you're still in the broadcast business, you're still trying to reach tens of millions. You're trying to still aim for a broader audience, and I think that's a more difficult task to spread yourself across that audience, connect with them, as opposed to a very, very small, pinpointed audience. Difficult to do. Warren Littlefield I did this film with Russell Crowe called 'The Water Diviner,' which took place just after WWI. It was fascinating because the weapons between WWI and WII were very different. I had to learn how to ride horses in a battle setting. It was important that we rode a certain way. Jai Courtney My teacher told me I'd never amount to anything. I left high school at 15, after one year. But my real teachers were all the people around me. And I was a good listener. Curtis Mayfield I realized that if I don't like something, I can change it. If I don't feel comfortabl...

If Sunday is the Lord's day, then Saturday belongs to the Devil. It is the

only night of the week when he gives out Free passes to the Late show at the Too Much Fun Club. Hunter S. Thompson Pantera revolutionized the sound and the approach to heavy metal. It's been regurgitated. Once you up the production on a product and not just the playing but the actual production, then it's going to up the ante. Phil Anselmo I've been truly blessed. I've been a fly on the wall of history. I've been just so many lucky places just by chance and serendipity, and obviously a huge portion of that serendipity had to do with my relationship with the real president, Ronald Reagan. Arthur Laffer Of all the seasons, winter is the most conducive to the great art of dormancy. This art requires an appreciation of semi-consciousness: the beautiful and necessary prelude to sleep - a special pleasure in itself that is all too often neglected, under-valued or looked down upon. Michael Leunig I personally am very active with the women's prison associati...

I'm the kind of person who likes to hang out and observe what's going on

in the streets, or in certain places. I used to do that a lot. But having to become an international superstar, I can't do that comfortably! But it's all positive, you know. Jimmy Cliff Liberty isn't liberalism, arbitrariness, but it's connected; it's conditioned by the great values of love and solidarity and in general by the good. Pope Benedict XVI I came to all the realizations about sustainability and biodiversity because I fell in love with the way food tastes. That was it. And because I was looking for that taste I feel at the doorsteps of the organic, local, sustainable farmers, dairy people and fisherman. Alice Waters The only biography I read was about Al Bell, of Stax Records. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Al Bell. Juicy J I didn't go to law school to become a lawyer, per se - let's just say I was leaning in to some strong suggestions from my parents - but my nebulous goals of someday becoming a writer were just that, nebulous....

The developing countries must be able to take a more active part in trade negotiations,

through technical assistance and support from the developed countries. Anna Lindh There is nothing I can do about this stuff and I am pretty well ok with the fact that I think Sundance is not going to be stopped by it, because he Festival is itself now, and doesn't need me out there to talk about it like I did years ago. Robert Redford As a teenager, I didn't want to be me; I wanted to be many different people. Maybe I realized that they all lived inside me and that if I managed to connect with them, they would become aspects of me. Marion Cotillard If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: 'fair,' leveled and social democratic. Obama didn't get elected to warranty your muffler. He's here to warranty your life. Charles Krauthammer I'm not sure I have a natural gift. I think it's just that some people have an easier time expressing their emotions, maybe because of the way they've been raised, and I've always bee...

As educators, we are only as effective as what we know. If we have no

working knowledge of what students studied in previous years, how can we build on their learning? If we have no insight into the curriculum in later grades, how can we prepare learners for future classes? Heidi Hayes Jacobs I do not like people touching my underwear. That's just weird! I travel with a washer and dryer, and I like cooking on the bus, too. Carrie Underwood If you look at Earwolf, we've tried to have a really diverse stable of hosts. Even my show can get a little 'dudey' sometimes. Scott Aukerman I go to the dentist every six months, I get a cleaning, so... I'm fortunate enough that those fluoride treatments as a child worked. Not getting any cavities. Daniel Tosh At East Side Jews, we can take a risk because it isn't all about the rules. I started it to create a space for all those people who wouldn't go to temple because they were scared of getting the rules wrong. Jill Soloway I've seen people around me write books, and so...