In the metropolitan haunts of the highly sophisticated, the cocktail is no longer an instrument of friendship but a competitive fashion statement, or one-upmanship.

Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending.

We don't get enough pampering. If we were once the only child of an adoring mother, we developed a taste for it; if not, we developed a thirst for it.

a woman may be called a wife and mother for most of her life, while a man is called a husband and father only at his funeral.

Dogwoods are great optimists. Daffodils wait and see, crouching firmly underground just in case spring doesn't come this year, but dogwoods have faith.

Cats vary so widely that all data is meaningless and the professional classifiers gnash their teeth trying to come up with even a single fact common to all.

True ownership of anything requires time.

New York was where we wanted to live when we were finally grown up, and drink martinis and stay out past bedtime.

There is no 'cat language.' Painful as it is for us to admit, they don't need one!

By and large, people who enjoy teaching animals to roll over will find themselves happier with a dog.

The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.

If we allow our American mindset of consumption to spill into our understanding of what a Christian is, we are in danger of living irrespective of world family.

It's crucial we know the facts and science, but it's naïve to rely on them alone to build a movement for change.

I have never seen faces, but because I have looked people in the eye, only their gazes.

I looked up to my parents because they were very successful in what they wanted to do. I was lucky; I didn't have to look far for role models.

I think it's the wrong way around to say when you get older move to the country. I think when you get older you move to New York. If you're a nice broad they'll look after you.

Well, prepare yourself. I am all kinds of thoughtful this week. I brought you something else.

Acting is the only thing I'm even vaguely good at and acting is something that I think I do know about.

For me, everything definitely comes from music.

Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.

Most organisations have a serial bully. It never ceases to amaze me how one person's divisive dysfunctional behaviour can permeate the entire organisation like a cancer.