"I can gab with pretty much anyone."

“I was passionate. I found something that I loved. I could be all alone in a big old skating rink and nobody could get near me and I didn't have to talk to anybody because of my shyness. It was great. I was in my fantasy world.”

Source : "Gold Medal Figure Skater". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 17, 2000.

“Whatever else it was, Adolf Hitler's short-lived regime was also a colossal industrial process by which the wealth and productive power of much of Europe was wrenched from its normal purposes and converted into a machine for killing.”

Source : "Hitler's gold". www.theguardian.com. August 11, 2006.

“It is not always easy to diagnose. The simplest form of stupidity - the mumbling, nose-picking, stolid incomprehension - can be detected by anyone. But the stupidity which disguises itself as thought, and which talks so glibly and eloquently, indeed never stops talking, in every walk of life is not so easy to identify, because it marches under a formidable name, which few dare attack. It is called Popular Opinion...”

Source : Robertson Davies (1996). “The Merry Heart: Selections 1980-1995”

“Reading for writers is like training for athletes.”

“Still, they were two thorns from the same thistle. Their tactics in terrorizing innocent ladies were identical. Their behavior was downright sinful, but what made it even worse was the fact that neither warrior seemed to realize the effect he had on others.”

“Society works not because we have consciously invented it, but because it is an ancient product of our evolved predispositions. It is literally in our nature.”

Source : Matt Ridley (1997). “The Origins of Virtue”, p.13, Penguin UK

“Nothing can tend so much to humble us before the mercy and justice of God as the consideration of His benefits and our own sins. Let us, then, consider what He has done for us, and what we have done against Him; let us call to mind our sins in detail, and His gracious benefits in like manner, remembering that whatever there is of good in us is not ours, but His, and then we need not be afraid of vainglory or of taking complacency in ourselves...”

“I had the honor to meet Geraldine Ferraro on a few occasions over the years at the DNC and what struck me was how she managed to be both gutsy and graceful at the same time. Without a doubt she was a trailblazer who not only stepped outside the box but who dared to redefine it. I always left her presence with the sense that she truly knew what she was talking about but that she never felt the need to browbeat you with it - instead she inspired people to listen and then act, and to me thats the hallmark of a true leader.”