"With me being in my 40s, I knew who I was."

“What, then is our duty? It is to carefully distinguish the historic moment in which we live and to consciously assign our small energies to a specific battlefield. The more we are in phase with the current which leads the way, the more we aid man in his difficult, uncertain, danger-fraught ascent toward salvation.”

“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”

Source : Edgar Lee Masters (2007). “Spoon River Anthology: Literary Touchstone Classic”, p.49, Prestwick House Inc

“Inspiration cannot be willed, though it can be wooed.”

“Once," Balinda begins softly, "when I was in the emergency room with my mother they brought in a murderer who had been shot and was dying, right there in front of us. I watched as the nurse touched his face and reassured him and I could not believe they were being so nice to him.""What happened?" Jill asked."My mother rose up, took my arm, gripped it as if she was a weight lifter and said, 'he was a beautiful baby once and his mother loved him'.”

Source : Kris Radish (2006). “Annie Freeman's Fabulous Traveling Funeral”, p.199, Bantam

“If I can join hands with FIFA and other continental bodies to promote football globally, then I can do more than that to raise African football to new heights.”

“Had my dream again where I'm making love, and the Olympic judges are watching. I'd nailed the compulsories, so this is it, the finals. I got a 9.8 from the Canadians, a perfect 10 from the Americans, and my mother, disguised as an East German judge, gave me a 5.6. Must have been the dismount.”

“The unicorns were the most recognizable magic the fairies possessed, and they sent them to those worlds where belief in the magic was in danger of falling altogether. After all there has to be some belief in magic- however small- for any world to survive.”

“I write in English because I was raised in the States and educated in this language.”

Source : "The Exchange: Daniel Alarcón" by Thessaly La Force, www.newyorker.com. May 5, 2009.