If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

If you're a single man and you happen to be in this business, you're deemed a player. But I don't see myself as a ladies' man.

Being in 'Us Weekly' does not make you famous.

I just wrapped this movie called 'The Wedding Crashers' which was a pretty big break for me.

I remember being away somewhere, and I had forgotten it was Valentine's Day with a person, and that was very embarrassing.

I liked sports but I never really had the confidence. I was always coordinated and it came easy to me, but I didn't have the confidence to go along with the physical skill.

You are almost not free, if you are teaching a group of graduate students, to become friends with one of them. I don't mean anything erotically charged, just a friendship.

'Love, Death and the Changing of the Seasons' is a kind of novel in verse about the arc of an urban lesbian love affair - and I suppose there is a certain amount of voyeurism in the consumption of fiction! The 'Sancerre' poems here are more contemplative and about the relationship of the individual to local and wider histories.

I have experienced healing through other writers' poetry, but there's no way I can sit down to write in the hope a poem will have healing potential. If I do, I'll write a bad poem.

Everyone thinks they're going to write one book of poems or one novel.

My mother was told she couldn't go to medical school because she was a woman and a Jew. So she became a teacher in the New York City public school system.

A flower falls, even though we love it; and a weed grows, even though we do not love it.

I've enjoyed a great friendship and relationship and have a tremendous amount of affinity for both the Clintons... and I'd like to keep it that way.

Middle school students are at a critical time in their lives when making good choices matters - the decisions they make in these formative years have an impact on their future success.

The history of the African American community is one of enduring, relentless struggle with a vision of accepting nothing less than full social and economic equality.

What the federal government can do, especially as it relates to urban, inner-city America, is invest resources that would help create jobs.

Medical disenfranchisement is fueled by a host of factors that include worsening shortage of primary care doctors in needy communities and a troubling scarcity of providers willing to treat the uninsured or publicly insured. Adding to the trend are fewer medical students choosing primary care over more lucrative and specialized fields.

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them.

Never retreat. Never explain. Get it done and let them howl.

We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.

There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants - more than anything else - to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are - and have always been.

One man is as good as another until he has written a book.

Never get involved with a business that you can't really be hands-on - that if your employees quit, you can't run yourself. If I can't cut hair, why open a barbershop?

To have so many years in the rap industry and so many number one songs, and sold so many millions of records, introduced the world to people like Cool & Dre, DJ Khaled, Pitbull, Rick Ross, Trick Daddy, Remy Ma, Big Pun, Rico Love... I could go on and on. Having been able to influence the rap game for so long is very important to me.

As long as you get your education and you stay focused, you can do anything.

I love Lil Wayne; that's like my little brother. He's just the coolest dude on Earth.

Food is like a legal drug. You can take 50 cents and walk into the store and buy a Twinkie and get high. And it's killing people.

The biggest direct influence on my career is Ben Edlund, who gave me my first real professional break and, through his friendship and example, turned me into a writer and a more critical thinker in general.

I don't think a lot of people are able to relate to genuine patriotism, a genuinely good feeling about our country and its meaning to the rest of the world.

I don't believe in having one partner for your whole life, but I hope I get married. I want to have a husband and two kids and a nice little life baking pies. I'm quite romantic. It's definitely important to have someone make you feel special.

The love you have for your child is so much greater than any challenge you'll face as a parent, and that's what helps you through.

So many schools are getting rid of music programs and it's really sad because I know that when I started singing and stuff it was something that I always wanted to do and I never believed in myself to be able to do it.

Mom always tells me to celebrate everyone's uniqueness. I like the way that sounds.

I get very nervous around famous people and I get nervous around beautiful women.

You'd think true masculinity was just calm and collected happiness. So alpha male that it needs not or worries not. But typically masculine characters are always fighting, and most violence comes from some agitated level of fear and anxiety.

I love my mother and father. The older I get, the more I value everything that they gave me.

I was a writer. I just wasn't a very good one. I was lucky enough to have a playwriting teacher who told me that I'd be a better actor than I would a playwright.

My publicist told me not to talk about politics but, yes, I think we have a president who stole the election.

You watch a hockey game, and the hand-eye coordination and the speed is really miraculous; how those guys track the puck alone, just following it with their eyes.

I noticed that no matter where I went in the country, there was this group of questions that got asked. I would track them and keep them in categories. Like body image, school, family, friendship, you name it, the emotional life of a teenage girl.

I will never forget experiencing Venice for the first time. It feels like you are transported to another time - the art, music, food and pure romance in the air is like no other place.

Having gone through so many of the personal things I've gone through, its about creating an (online) space for girls to be heard. I don't profess to have all the answers. But Ask Elizabeth is a space where girls are not alone.

There is no conflict between the ideal of religion and the ideal of science, but science is opposed to theological dogmas because science is founded on fact. To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine.

I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success... such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Modern science says: 'The sun is the past, the earth is the present, the moon is the future.' From an incandescent mass we have originated, and into a frozen mass we shall turn. Merciless is the law of nature, and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

Electrical science has revealed to us the true nature of light, has provided us with innumerable appliances and instruments of precision, and has thereby vastly added to the exactness of our knowledge.

The history of science shows that theories are perishable. With every new truth that is revealed we get a better understanding of Nature and our conceptions and views are modified.