"Essayists, like poets, are born and not made, and for one worth remembering, the world is confronted with a hundred not worth reading. Your true essayist is, in a literary sense, the friend of everybody."

“To write an autobiography, you've got to expose other people. I hope to get out of this world as gracefully as possible, without embarrassing anyone.”

“Philanthropy can take the risks that others cannot or will not.”

“Therefore, if one were to consider that there was virtually no possibility of success through the US-Japan negotiations, the military and economic pressures would only force Japan into further crisis if time were allowed to pass in vain.”

“I've been designing my own pieces for a long time. My mother's a jewelry designer, so we knew at some point we were going to do a line and dive into the fashion world.”

Source : "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

“Here's your first problem," he said, pointing at a sentence. "'Religion is the opium of the people.' Well, I don't know about people, but I think you'll find that the opium of pirates is actual opium.”

Source : Gideon Defoe (2012). “The Pirates! In an Adventure with Communists: Reissued”, p.96, A&C Black

“The desire to be liked is acceptable in real life but very problematic in fiction. Pleasantness is the enemy of good fiction. I try to write on the premise that no one is going to read my work. Because there's this terrible impulse to grovel before the reader, to make them like you, to write with the reader in mind in that way. It prevents you doing work that is ugly or upsetting or difficult. The temptation is to not be true to what you want to write and to be considerate or amusing instead. I'm always trying to fight against the impulse to make my readers like me.”

Source : Source: www.guernicamag.com

“Our job is to ensure that meat and poultry products are safe, wholesome, accurately labeled for the benefit of the American consumers, and to make sure that they are in compliance with all federal laws.”

Source : "An Exclusive Interview: USDA Secretary Mike Johanns". Interview with Sam Gazdziak, www.provisioneronline.com. June 1, 2005.

“I've always believed in the old-fashioned way: When you've got scoundrels in office, you vote 'em out.”