I can only say that one's individual situation is more real and important to oneself than the devastations of fates and empires especially when they do not vitally affect oneself.

You mustn't forget the circumstances I have been brought up in, the little education I have had.

Being by the nature of my upbringing, all my energies having been directed to one channel of activity, crippled from other activities and made helpless even to live.

I never joined the army for patriotic reasons.

I despair of ever writing excellent poetry.

I can't look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do.

Nothing can justify war.

Poetical appreciation is only newly bursting on me.

I can only say that one's individual situation is more real and important to oneself than the devastations of fates and empires especially when they do not vitally affect oneself.

Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way.

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.

I wanted to write a battle song for the Judeans but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough.

We must revamp K-12 education law to ensure Washington does not stand in the way of meaningful reforms.

I believe that body and spirit are not really separate, though it often seems that way. I believe that redemption is never impossible and always equivocal. But I guess that I just don't know.

Nobody really knows what makes a hit TV show.

I'm not only a lawyer, I have a post doctorate degree in federal tax law from William and Mary. I work in serious scholarship and work in the United States federal tax court. My husband and I raised five kids. We've raised 23 foster children. We've applied ourselves to education reform. We started a charter school for at-risk kids.

I think that's what fiction writing is actually all about. It's about trying to solve problems in creative ways.

Every friend is to the other a sun, and a sunflower also. He attracts and follows.

I love characters songs and I love to fit into a story. I love singing through a character's journey.

I'm a techno moron. I need help just to plug in my video camera.

At the end of the day, I know that I make my living by dressing up, fooling around, playing pranks and giving people a good time. I am enjoying the ride.

Bottom line, I have to follow what my soul says, or my spirit. And my spirit said that poetry and the arts should be without borders, should be without political borders.

I was the ugly duckling until I reached puberty.

My dad was a quiet assassin. He was really charming and smiley and softly spoken, but he could knock you out in a second.

There's something to be said for failing. It's not the failure you feel, it's the failure that people project when something disappoints. You're back to ground zero, where there's no expectations, and that's where I like to be.

Art is when things appear rounded.

As soon as I get into my house, I put on sweats and pyjamas.

Answers are not enough, students should be encouraged to ask questions and explore alternatives to the norm. Entrepreneurship and invention are the backbone of the new economy, yet I doubt they get more than a nod in economics courses.

I would say it's not as hard as writing, because when you're a writer, you walk right into the pit all by yourself, but when you're a director, there are at least 80 people who scream, 'Don't do that!' when you make a mistake.

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.

For me personally, the way I've been trained, just through life experience - the harder something is, the harder you have to work for it, the more worthwhile it is, and you just have to know that going in.

I just want my relationship to be more for myself rather than a public statement.

I see people as haunted by the selves they don't know... I don't have children, but I have nieces and nephews, and one thing I notice is how fascinated they are by stories of their lives before they can remember.

I have a genuine philosophy. I do not want to make negative pictures about people, and so I do everything I can to help make them feel comfortable in front of the camera. That is what is going to control your picture, because you are alone if your subject is not with you. And that's the simple answer to getting a good picture.

The range of circumstances in which it is possible to presuppose the presence of a combination is very limited. The presence of such circumstances is the reason for the genesis of the idea in the masters brain.

It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.