"Everything we design and make is an improvisation, a lash-up, something inept and provisional."

“Eating is aggressive by nature, and the implements required for it could quickly become weapons; table manners are, most basically, a system of taboos designed to ensure that violence remains out of the question.”

Source : Margaret Visser (2015). “The Rituals of Dinner: The Origins, Evolution, Eccentricities, and Meaning of Table Manners”, p.10, Open Road Media

“I say this as a Democrat, for whom the Republican domination of government threatens many values that I hold to be important to America's role as a light among nations. But there are no values that matter to me that will not be gravely endangered if we lose this war.”

“Garden work consists much more in uprooting weeds than in planting seed. This applies also to teaching.”

“Reject every form of corruption.”

“Everyone wants to look their best, everyone has dreams of wanting to look like something else. But we are who we are.”

Source : "Young, gifted and gabby" by Burhan Wazir, www.theguardian.com. June 17, 2000.

“All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle — keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate.”

“Research can only present data about the past. No one seriously believes that people's answers to hypothetical questions about the future accurately represent their future behaviour; they merely represent a current attitude, which may or may not be translated into future behaviour.”

“Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a war against terrorism.”