"Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another." ~Ambrose Bierce

"To be remembered, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
~Anon.

"History is the ship carrying living memories to the future."~Stephen Spender

"I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else along the way."~Franklin P. Adams

"Nothing in life is to be feared.  It is only to be understood."~Madame Curie

"The books that help you the most are those that make you think the most."~Theodore Parker

"Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it."~Robert Frost

"...I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or parcel of God."~from "Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It is dangerous to think we know everything."~Jack Kuehling

"Our dreams are limited only by how far our thoughts will take us."~Anon.

"A writer is a sponge who soaks up ideas, throws them into their melting pot, and creates a tasty story or poem."~Me

"[Writing] lets the world burn through you."~Ray Bradbury

"If people want to know why I...study constantly...it's to expand my knowledge so I can understand the world better, and just because I'm curious."~Me

"For although literature can never replace actual human interaction, it can deepen the understanding that comes from sharing in the common struggle for human dignity and freedom." ~Coretta Scott King

"Inspiration can strike at any moment, but God strikes it at the best."~a point taken from "A Circle of Quiet" by Madeleine L'Engle

" 'Do you know, I always thought unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!' 'Well, now that we have seen each other,' said the unicorn,'if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.' "~from "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll

"God's gift to you is life.  Your gift to God is what you do with your life."~Anon.

"People are like Twinkies; the best stuff is on the inside."~Me

"Be yourself.  Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish."~John Jakes

"An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way."  ~Charles Bukowsky

"Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow." ~Plato

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources." ~Albert Einstein

"To accomplish great things, we must dream as well as act."  ~Anatole France

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason why so few engage in it."  ~Henry Ford, Sr.

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings you as by the attitude you bring to life."  ~John Homer Miller

"The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense."  ~Tom Clancy

"Gentle Reader, The word will leap on you with leopard man iron claws, it will cut off fingers and toes like an opportunist land crab, it will coil round your thighs like a bushmaster and inject a shotglass of rancid ectoplasm."  ~William S. Burroughs

"Once you begin to forgive and let go of your resentments, you will begin to feel lighter, more complete, whole and centered."  ~Harold Bloomfield

"God is no distant deity but a constant reality...So? So live like it. And laugh like it." ~Charles Swindoll

"If we did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves." ~Thomas Edison

"Do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance."  ~1 Peter 1:14

"It is always sunrise somewhere." ~John Muir

"I'll try to touch the world like You've touched my life." ~Audio Adrenaline

"A writer is a manufacturer of words, processing the abstract world into condensed boxes known as poems [or stories]." ~Me

"I could claim myself king of a nutshell and say I am the king of infinite space!" ~Hamlet

"A beautiful lady is an accident of nature.  A beautiful old lady is a work of art." ~Louis Nizer

"'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,'--that is all Ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know." ~John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

"Punctuality is a virtue of the bored." ~Evelyn Waugh

"I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it." ~Garrison Keillor

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in." ~Ricky Fitts, American Beauty

"Some birds can't be caged; their feathers are just too bright." ~

"If you can say a relationship made you become a better person, then it was all worthwhile." ~Me

"Sit in reverie, and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind." ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Stolen water tastes sweet at first, but then it turns to gravel in your mouth." ~Anon.

"Love asks nothing in return." ~Me

"Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
~Dylan Thomas

"In the secret, in the quiet place, we are made bare, purer to form, that part of ourselves that is only known to us, and to God.  It is here in which we realize our honest emotions--our fears, our dreams, our imaginations, our limitations all thrive in this world on the edge of our souls.  Why did God make such a big universe, only to go back and make such small creatures in comparison?  It's because we are the universe, only more concentrated.  We are the embodied cosmost of freeflowing thought and spirit.  We set in motion those feelings which the wind cannot speak.  We interpret the language of the stars, and of ourselves." ~Me

"Know, O my son that each thing in the universe is a vessel full to the brim with wisdom and beauty." ~Rumi

"Everything that happens to us and everything we encounter contribute to our journey toward wholeness." ~Spiritual Literacy

"Your soul suffers if you live superficially." ~Albert Schweitzer

"We are the mind of the earth." ~Anon.

"Being a student is humbling yourself.  You are saying, 'I don't know everything, but I'm willing to learn.'" ~Me

"By taking dull, ordinary things and carressing them, we can make them shine." ~Rev. McBride

"Writing is bottlenecking the world." ~Me

"The beginning is always today." ~Mary Wollstonecraft

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" ~Vincent van Gogh

"No man is an island entire of itself, every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is less, as well as if a promontorie were, as well as if a mannor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; and therefor never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." ~John Donne, Meditation XVII

"An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may would your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind." ~Buddha

"Don't think you have to fix everything about yourself for your soul's sake." ~100 Ways to Keep Your Soul Alive

"There is a difference between the person who does wrong once and the person for whom it becomes a lifestyle." ~Kushner

"The real me is found in that part of me which is not physical--my values, my memories, my habits, my personality, my sense of humor." ~Kushner

"When you leave this world, you are not going to be remembered for your ability to still fit into the jeans you wore in high school...You're going to be remembered for what you contributed to your world, however small or large.  You're going to be remembered for being a real lady." ~Noelle Cleary and Dini von Mueffling, The Art and Power of Being a Lady

"Imagination is the presence of the Divine." ~a random picture in an artsy store, thus Anon.

"It doesn't seem all that difficult to 'Love your neighbors as yourself.' If God can muster the strength and compassion to make a universe and within that universe creatures and thusly provide love for them, then surely we--creatures of hardly notable worth--can find it in ourselves to love others and do things for them." ~Me

Numinous=> the feeling of the sacred or holy
"...I think the bureaucratic religions try to institutionalize your perception of the numinous instead of providing the means so you can perceive the numinous directly--like looking through a six-inch telescope.  If sensing the numinous is at the heart of religion, who's more religious would you say--the people who follow the bureaucratic religions or the people who teach themselves science?" ~Ellie from Contact by Carl Sagan

"In all my thinking and plodding through thoughts and analyzing them, how could I have missed it? It's interactions with others that makes the world go round!" ~Me

"Storytellers are omnicient." ~Gonzo as Charles Dickens in The Muppet Christmas Carol

"I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance." ~Pablo Cansals

"I don't need your approval to find my worth." ~Lifehouse

"Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them." ~Ralph Gerard

"To make an impression, stay farther away.  To make an impact, get closer." ~Anon.

"Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?" ~Isaiah 55:2

"There have been many tears and much pain, all because people want to be remembered." ~A speaker at 2001 Hometown Heroes

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life:
it goes on."
~Robert Frost

"Love is an act of the imagination.  For some of us, it will be the greatest creative triumph of our lives." ~Ethel Spector Person

"Don't marry someone unless you feel comfortable sharing 90% of things in your life with him or her." ~My friend Bonnie

"Every friendship plays a different tune in your soul." ~Wilfred Sheed

"Be like a duck.  Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath." ~Michael Caine

"The best mind-altering drug is the truth." ~Lilly Tomlin

"Sometimes we choose a friend who mirrors our fantasies, dreams of a self we wish we could be." ~Lillian Rubin

"Dream as if you'll live forever.  Live as if you'll die today." ~James Dean

"I think it's insulting to God to think that He can only handle one planet at a time." ~My friend Matt Millikin

"In the fabric of space and in the nature of matter, as in a great work of art, there is, written small, the artist's signature." ~Contact by Carl Sagan

"Confusion is the first step toward wisdom.  Folly is thinking you have all the answers." ~God in Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"The mind analyzes and remembers, the body experiences and feels, the soul observes and knows." ~God in Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"A friend is somebody who can't be imposed upon. Everybody else is an acquaintance." ~God in Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"There is no condemnation or punishment...except that which you afflict upon yourself." ~God in Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"Every soul is perfect, pure, and beautiful. In the state of forgetfulness in which they reside here on Earth, God's perfect beings may do imperfect things--or what we would call imperfect things--yet everything that occurs in life occurs for a perfect reason." ~from Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"We spend the first twelve months of our children's lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up." ~Phyllis Diller

"Good looks open doors, but they don't keep you in the room." ~Todd Coomber

"We are all caught up in an inescapable web of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever effects one directly effects all indirectly." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart." ~Donald Laird

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one." ~Malcolm S. Forbes

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." ~John Lennon, Imagine

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'" ~Erma Bombeck

"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." ~Marcus Aurelius

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should also not look only to your own interests, but to the interests of others as well." ~Phillipians 2

"I wanted to be the first woman to burn her bra, but it would have taken the fire department four days to put it out." ~Dolly Parton

"Instead of copying a good example, let it inspire you." ~Anon.

"If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive." ~Audre Lorde

"Every act is an act of self-definition." ~Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"It is insanity to use the energy that created a problem to seek to solve the problem." ~God in Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch

"Dawn.  It comes with every magnificent beginning, every fresh thought, every new action.  Life's epiphanies glide on its ripe rays.  Changes happen as gradually as the dawn, the sunrise." ~Me

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." ~Victor Borge

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." ~W.M. Lewis

"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage." ~Lao-Tzu

"Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh." ~George Bernard Shaw

"There are no mistakes, no coincidences.  All events are blessings given to us to learn from." ~Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

"We figured there was too much happiness here for just the two of us, so we figured the next logical step was to have us a critter." ~Nicholas Cage as H.I. McDonough in Raising Arizona

"To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance." ~Buddha

"When I examined myself, and my methods of thought, I came to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." ~Albert Einstein

"There is no end to what terrorizes your spirit, buries it." ~Dr. J. Nozipo Maraire, author of Zenzele

"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not." ~La Rochefoucauld

"Well, what if there is no tomorrow?  There wasn't one today." ~Bill Murray as Phil Connors in Groundhog Day

"Reality is that which when you stop believing in it doesn't go away." ~Philip K. Dick

"Love.  Think.  Speak."  ~Aslan in The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

"You are what you read." ~Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail

"Friends and family can be wonderfully supportive, but sometimes you have to turn to yourself and give yourself permission to feel whatever needs to be felt and to say everything that needs to be said." ~Edel Jarboe in 5 Ways to Make the Most of Your Journal

"I'm stronger than yesterday." ~Britney Spears in Stronger

"Who are you apart from the world?" ~Me

"The river cannot exist without the water; so we, too, cannot exist without God, from whom all blessings flow." ~Me

"There's no greater power than the power of goodbye." ~Madonna

"Once stretched by a new idea, man's mind never returns to its original dimensions." ~Oliver Wendell Holmes

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?" ~Satchel Paige

"Man must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind him to the fact that each moment of his life is a miracle and a mystery." ~H.G. Wells

"One reason why I don't drink is because I wish to know when I am having a good time." ~Christian Herald, June 1960 p. 3

"...and I would walk a thousand miles if I could just see you tonight." ~Vanessa Carlton (think of this if the you were God)

"Is sloppiness in speech caused by ignorance or apathy?  I don't know and I don't care." ~William Safire

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps." ~Proverbs 16:9

"He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever." ~Chinese proverb

"Express yourself, don't repress yourself." ~Madonna

"Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them." ~Walter Kerr

"I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art." ~Kahlil Gibran

" I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
~Confucius

"Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action, the most difficult thing in the world." ~Goethe, 1749-1832

"Art is an act of the soul, not of the intellect." ~a book of a shelf, thus Anon.

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than thye love truth." ~Joseph Joubert, 18th century French essayist