This was how they learned their most valuable lesson about death - that after it there is life again, that things that perish will rise again, that after every ending there is another beginning — Sunflowers and death

If we let it change us then they will have won

This is not an ending of my choosing. From now on I will choose my own endings

Womanhood... not at all a pretty sight

He had never heard a name for such a person. Did such a hybrid thing even exist?

Promise me that you will not become a politician... promise me you will become a real revolutionary instead.

Choosing instead to step on a landmine and be blown to pieces

Marcus felt that their beauty was not to be trusted. It was a dangerous beauty

We are your family now

If people saw him building a giant pair of silver wings, then they too would believe that they could fly

You cannot break me. You see, I know for certain that my parents were capable of flight

Valentine loved the idea that flight was possible for someone like him. Valentine believed.

It is our reality, the way we live now, our truth. So of course we cannot acknowledge it, let alone print it

Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy is to forget the right way and forget that the going is easy.

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.

In many countries in the Middle East - and this is changing in the wake of the Arab Spring - but for a long time, censorship of books and film was a very big deal. There were books you couldn't buy; things with political content would be censored, but there were some genres of books and film that the censors just didn't understand.

He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.

I'm a huge fan of 'Community'; it's, I think, one of the most brilliant comedy on television and has been for a long time.

It is hard to fight against impulsive desire; whatever it wants it will buy at the cost of the soul.

Only a good-for-nothing is not interested in his past.

I am always who I am, and anyone who's known me forever will tell you that. I guess there's enough of a child in me that that's important.

The best thing about the iPhone is this that tells me where I am all the time. There's never a need to feel lost anymore.

When the public's right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered.

We've lost 400,000 jobs in Michigan because of downsizing.

You seek help from the elders. A society with elders is healthy. It's not always that way in the West.

I am an artist and a political being as well.

I think it's difficult to be No. 1. 'There's too much attention, too much expectation from other people.

We aren't upset when Paramount makes a $200 million movie that flops, but if a charity experiments with a $5 million fundraising event that fails, we call in the attorneys. So charities are petrified of trying bold new revenue-generating endeavors and can't develop the powerful learning curves the for-profit sector can.

Politicians wanted to mine the Grand Canyon for zinc and copper, and Theodore Roosevelt said, 'No.'

With technology tracking us everywhere we go, 'cosplay' might become our best defense against surveillance.

America stopped making vinyl and phased out the single but Germany held out and refused. Warner's never phased out vinyl in Germany. Now America imports it!

Everyone is looking for connections between the songs. I don't usually approach a record as a concept. There's no overriding theme I'm trying to represent. It's all about the individual songs.

Obviously, everybody has their own expectations of you, but you have to have your own expectations for yourself. For me, I'm right on track.

Modern dancers should be doing things no one else is doing, and it should come from the gut.

The shelves of many evangelicals are full of books that point out the flaws in evolution, discuss it only as a theory, and almost imply that there's a conspiracy here to avoid the fact that evolution is actually flawed. All of those books, unfortunately, are based upon conclusions that no reasonable biologist would now accept.

I was the weirdest kid: I wanted to see the police file - in grade school! I was convinced I could crack the case if I just had that file.

A full beard looks cool.