"We shall not understand the history of men and other times unless we ourselves are alive to the requirements which that history satisfied."

“Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.”

Source : "It is not fanciful to make the pursuit of happiness a political imperative" by Polly Toynbee, www.theguardian.com. June 15, 2006.

“Let all Black Poets die as trumpets, And be buried in the dust of marching feet.”

Source : Etheridge Knight (1986). “The Essential Etheridge Knight”, p.55, University of Pittsburgh Press

“There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right / Boys and Girls in America / Have such a sad time together.”

Source : "Song: "Stuck Between the Stations" ("Boys and Girls in America")". 2006.

“Only mind has sight and hearing; all things else are deaf and blind.”

“I am under no illusion that I will ever be the greatest opera composer in the world, with Wagner and Verdi and Strauss before me. I think my work could fit very nicely into musicals, though.”

“I think I don't sing as hard as I used to sing. I used to kind of hit the accelerator a lot back in my youth, but now it's just being able to control it, and not work it so hard and use more of an emotional or sub textual kind of approach to singing.”

“I don't only long for the thrill of being in the middle of a war, I must understand it; I must make other people understand.”

Source : "Why Her And Not Me? Robert Draper on Amanda Lindhout's Kidnapping" by Robert Draper, www.elle.com. September 4, 2013.

“Before I started studying martial arts, I had temper problems. I could definitely fly off the handle. Being raised in the south in 1956 definitely gave me some memories to latch onto for negative emotions.”

Source : Source: www.avclub.com