"Be what you are. This is the first step toward becoming better than you are."

“The most obvious – and easiest! – way to gain perspective is to put your work away for a while. The truth is, we don’t know how taking a break frees up the mind, but it does: Somehow it freshens our little neurons, or perhaps it prompts the brain to create more cleverness molecules. If you can bear to let a short piece sit a week and a book-length work a month, do so. Longer is fine, too; some authors have abandoned manuscripts for years before unearthing them and realizing, ‘Hey, this isn’t bad,’ and renewing their energy for the project.”

“Everybody needs a fan, and the support and the encouragement. We're human beings; that is an essential part of the equation. When that fan is not there and when you're in a situation that triggers you on a historical level, you behave impulsively. You can destroy years worth of work professionally, personally, in a moment of being triggered by that.”

“If you really hate George Bush, you don't want to read about his hobbies or that he's nice to his friends or that he's good company at dinner.”

Source : "It's curtains for Okrent" by Steve Kettmann, www.theguardian.com. May 12, 2005.

“I think this is really a defining moment for the Arab world. The problem is, it is all going to be about blood, sweat and tears. In certain countries it may be just sweat, and in some countries sweat and tears, and in some countries, as you can see, a lot of blood. I think initial instability is something that we are all extremely nervous of.”

“Age, like distance lends a double charm.”

“Imagination, realm of enchantment!- which the most beneficent of beings bestowed upon man to console him for reality- I must quit you now.”

Source : Xavier de Maistre, Stephen Sartarelli (1994). “Voyage Around My Room: Selected Works of Xavier DeMaistre”, p.81, New Directions Publishing

“Accountants are in the past, managers are in the present, and leaders are in the future.”

“Solitude is the soul's holiday, an opportunity to stop doing for others and to surprise and delight ourselves instead.”