"In a bureaucracy, they shoot the bull, pass the buck, and make seven copies of everything."

“In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics.”

“I think still that someone wiser than I might well have remained happy till his death.”

“I'm an around-the-way girl. I'm a singer, songwriter. I'm about positivity and spreading a good message and telling the people's story.”

“Live your life as an Exclamation rather than an Explanation”

“Just smiling goes a long way toward making you feel better about life. And when you feel better about life, your life is better. With an optimistic, positive attitude toward life, the possibilities for your second prime are tremendous.”

“The word griot...is the word for what I do and the role that the filmmaker has in society...the griot is a messenger of one's time, a visionary and the creator of the future.”

“To me, beauty is confidence. I think I’m pretty confident in the decisions and the choices I make in my personal life and career, but the same time I also let my fans know that, just like them, I have insecurities. I have moments when I don’t feel good about myself. I think people can forget that, at the end of the day, I’m just a normal girl dealing with lots of the same issues as them.”

“And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.”

Source : Edgar Lee Masters (2012). “Spoon River Anthology”, p.62, The Floating Press