The wretchedness of failure is the great attraction of success.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Your gift will unlock doors that you prayed for God to open.

Consider the Circle ~ Ponder on the Perigon

My working and personal relationship with President Obama is marked by growing trust. I appreciate this.

Think of it as the Doorway of No Return. The feeling must be that your lead character, once she passes through, cannot go home again until the major problem of the plot is solved.

I don't want to be doing fashion shoots and being interviewed about where I shop. Who cares?

...unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

What is to be done about these literary people, who will never understand that painting is a craft and that the material side comes first? The ideas come afterwards, when the picture is finished.

Adoption is rewarding. But the process, as we have already detailed in some particulars, can be expensive, exhausting, and hard to sustain on a dream, much less a whim.

They say love is blindness of heart; I say not to love is blindness.

One in four children being victimized? That's about seven children in every classroom. That's a significant proportion of the population.