Ernest Hemingway

"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."

- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist

Carl Sagan

"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English - up to fifty words used in correct context - no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."

- Carl Sagan, scientist and author

Steve Moakler

"The devil will reside if you let him."

- Steve Moakler, 'All The Faint Lights'

Helen Keller

"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."

- Helen Keller, author and activist

Henry David Thoreau

"It is never too late to give up your prejudices."

- Henry David Thoreau, author, poet and developmental critic

Ralph Waldo Emerson

"All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist, philosopher, poet

Lois McMaster Bujold

"But pain... seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?"

- "Barrayar" by Lois McMaster Bujold

Ann Radcliffe

"Poverty cannot deprive us of many consolations. It cannot rob us of the affection we have for each other, or degrade us in our own opinion, of in that of any person, whose opinion we ought to value."

- "The Mysteries of Udolpho" by Ann Radcliffe

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal

"We cannot destroy kindred: Our chains stretch a little sometimes, but they never break."

- Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, French aristocrat

Becka Pimenta

"Heartache's just a phase, and phases don't last forever."

- Becka Pimenta, 'Favourite Stranger'

Larry Gelbart

"One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you." 

- Larry Gelbart, author, playwright, screenwriter

Jim Carrey

“Desperation is a necessary ingredient to learning anything, or creating anything. Period. If you ain't desperate at some point, you ain't interesting.”

- Jim Carrey, actor and comedian

J. K. Rowling

"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other."

- J. K. Rowling, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"

Lillie Langtry

"Anyone who limits her vision to memories of yesterday is already dead."

- Lillie Langtry, singer and actress

Marcel Pagnol

“One has to look out for engineers they begin with sewing machines and end up with the atomic bomb”

- Marcel Pagnol, playwright, author and filmmaker

George Santayana

"Sanity is a madness put to good use."

- George Santayana, philosopher, poet, author

Marie Digby

"It's never the right time to find a new way."

- Marie Digby, 'Beauty In Walking Away'

William Allen White

“Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily - certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay.”

- William Allen White, author and newspaper editor

H. L. Mencken

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood."

- H. L. Mencken, journalist, editor, satirist, critic

Evan Esar

"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose."

- Evan Esar, humorist and author

Salvador Dali

"Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it."

- Salvador Dali, painter

Chuck Palahniuk

"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I've ever known."

- "Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk

Kurt Vonnegut

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information."

- Kurt Vonnegut, author

Rachael Lampa

"It's dark so you can see the light,
It's hard so you can know it's right, 
Rain, nothing ever grows without you.
And hurt is just a chance to heal,
And tears are just a call to feel,
Pain, beauty's just a word without you."

- Rachael Lampa, 'Beauty's Just A Word'

Harry S. Truman

"Whenever you have efficient government, you have a dictatorship."

- Harry S. Truman, former president of the USA

Anne Tyler

"I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get."

Anne Tyler, author

Hilary Thayer Hamann

"Boys will be boys, that's what people say, No one ever mentions how girls have to be something other than themselves altogether."

- "Anthropology of an American Girl" by Hilary Thayer Hamann

Mark Twain

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

- Mark Twain, author

Edward R. Murrow

"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."

- Edward R. Murrow, journalist

Herman Melville

"Life's a voyage that's homeward bound."

- Herman Melville, author