The great thing about costume jewelry is that there's something for everyone - there are very humorous pieces and very extravagant and outrageous pieces.

Junk stands and antique markets are the perfect place to pick up clues about the history of a country, region or town.

Mother Nature is the great equalizer. You can't get away from it.

Certainly, anyone whom I've witnessed, who has gone through something horrible and life-changing, has a sense of ironic humor, or an ability to look at the peculiarities of the world and find humor in it.

My guess is the great majority of teachers would welcome a system where innovation is embraced, where their hard work and their students' achievement are applauded and rewarded.

Anger does not solve problems - anger only makes things worse. I go by the old saying, 'Don't make important decisions when you're angry.'

Be proud of your Latino culture and do the best work you can do, and you will always succeed.

Let us go forward in this battle fortified by conviction that those who labour in the service of a great and good cause will never fail.

I've always believed that clothing is a great way to tell your story.

It's really important to share the idea that being different might feel like a problem at the time, but ultimately diversity is a strength.

I hoped I could make people smile and laugh and have a good time.

I think ultimately I make people happy: Whether I'm doing the stage show, giving somebody a makeover, or designing clothing, the end goal is to make people smile.

A man must live like a great brilliant flame and burn as brightly as he can. In the end he burns out. But this is far better than a mean little flame.

Russia also declared its independence. This was approved by the Supreme Soviet, and you know and remember that there was the Declaration on the Independence of Russia.

That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil's means; great teachers foresee a pupil's ends.

When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed the point.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I've left the opera house.

I live for my daughter. Every decision I make is about her and for her. It's great. She's perfect.

I think we all wish we could erase some dark times in our lives. But all of life's experiences, bad and good make you who you are. Erasing any of life's experiences would be a great mistake.

In real estate, you make 10% of your money because you're a genius and 90% because you catch a great wave.

I went to my son's graduation this weekend, and I heard a great quote I've never heard before from Albert Einstein. It was that the greatest danger to the world is not the bad people but it's the good people who don't speak out.

I used to worry about what would happen five or 10 years from now, but I don't anymore. I thought about going to medical school because that has always interested me, but decided against it.

I had a wonderful life and was blessed with so many loving people and great friends.

We often grow up being told that we can do this or that, but if you don't see anybody that looks like you doing it, you don't believe you can do it. But I had great teachers, and I wanted to be a great teacher.

I'm very grateful and fully aware that 90 percent of actors are not working. Going from public school teacher to a show like 'Grey's Anatomy', I love what I do.

I thought that if acting didn't work out, I'd have done law school or medical school: probably law to be honest.

I'm kind of in a middle space, being marketed as a biracial actor. Roles are written either stereotypically black, or they're written 'normal,' which is just code for white.

Storybooks were always a big part of my imagination, and my childhood and adolescence.

There is strength in numbers, but organizing those numbers is one of the great challenges.

My mother's father, Hobart Cromwell, was a bacteriologist with Abbott Laboratories in suburban Chicago. I never got to know him well, as he died very young, but he was always a heroic figure in our family, wise and gentle and intelligent by reputation, with the courage to fight against the McCarthyites.

I don't like to do much with my hair - which is good, because I don't know how! I just always make sure I have a great haircut.

I'm not sure whether I've been happy. After my last book tour, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea. I thought: 'You can't rewind the movie. I've spent more than half my life in the Middle East. There have been great moments of horror and depression and loneliness.'

President Bush will come here and there will be new 'friends' of America to open a new relationship with the world, new economic fortunes for those who 'liberated' them.

I think that, if anything, the pageant is great for people who suffer from body issues. It's all about being comfortable with what you're given and what you have and being able to flaunt it without being insecure. It's about empowering women, not making them feel weak or less.

If you're comfortable with yourself, then you'll look beautiful. If you're not feeling comfortable with yourself, than that kind of shows. I think that as cheesy as the pageant industry can be seen at times, it actually does help women - boosting their confidence and growing into their own. I have to give it credit for that.

There's been a lot of really great intensive research into earthquakes, but we can't predict an earthquake down to the day. We can't predict where a hurricane is going to be a month in advance.

Cooking is not difficult. Everyone has taste, even if they don't realize it. Even if you're not a great chef, there's nothing to stop you understanding the difference between what tastes good and what doesn't.

My unrealized ambition is to tend my vines, produce wine, and work like an artisan. I dream of rediscovering the old traditions and customs of wine growing, not necessarily to deny the technology which we have today, but to harness it and work in harmony with nature.

Authenticity is the ability to listen to what nature tells us. Listening isn't the same thing as never making a mistake, but the important thing is to learn.

Great leaders don't rush to blame. They instinctively look for solutions.

In 1992, Bill Clinton ran on a platform of 'ending welfare as we know it.' His political worldview, drawn from like-minded thinkers at the Democratic Leadership Council, was based in private sector growth and personal responsibility.

Jobless workers, especially those out of work for months and years, don't have the skills to multitask in a fast-paced economy where medical workers need to know electronic record-keeping, machinists need computer skills, and marketing managers can no longer delegate software duties.

Public anger over bank bailouts was as much about fairness as the billions of dollars spent.

The mission of Patrick Henry College was to attract and cultivate academic stars from the ranks of home-schooled evangelicals, then send them off on graduation day to 'shape the culture and take back the nation,' in the words of a common home-schooling rallying cry.

In May 2007, congressional Democrats and the Bush administration agreed to a plan to include environmental and international labor standards in upcoming trade agreements.

When I visited the Water Institute's Baton Rouge offices overlooking the Mississippi River, I couldn't find a drop of the charged politics that drives so many environmental conversations in Washington.

To avoid becoming chronically unemployed, people need more than platitudes offering sympathy. Career reinvention requires encouragement and guidance.

I want to keep meeting new people, enlarging my circle of friends. I have great friends now... really good people. But I'm always ready for what comes next.

Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians: they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five.

Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.