It Takes An Instant

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.

-- Voltaire

RIP Benazir Bhutto

I put my life in danger and came here because I feel this country is in danger. People are worried. We will bring the country out of this crisis.

-- Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 - 27 December 2007), Pakistani politician, first woman elected to lead a Muslim state, at a rally in Rawalpindi minutes before her assassination

Nobody

Without my body I am a nobody!

-- Hermes Conrad, Futurama, "Bender's Big Score"

Minute Fractions

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Most Useful Gift

I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt

A Place To Go

Having a place to go - is a home. Having someone to love - is a family. Having both - is a blessing.

-- Donna Hedges

Juggling

What's hard about what I'm doing is the sheer number of balls I'm juggling at once ... and they aren't balls. They're knives and chainsaws and burning [stuff] and the trick is not dropping any of that. That's what makes it hard.

-- Martin Eberhard, Tesla co-founder, CEO, and Illinois alumnus, UI Alumni Association's "Resonance", 16 November 2007

Good Weather

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

Baseball's Collective Failure

Manny Alexander     Brendan Donnelly    Ryan Jorgensen     
Chad Allen          Chris Donnels       Mike Judd          
Rick Ankiel         Lenny Dykstra       David Justice      
David Bell          Bobby Estalella     Chuck Knoblauch    
Mike Bell           Matt Franco         Tim Laker          
Marvin Benard       Ryan Franklin       Mike Lansing       
Gary Bennett        Eric Gagne          Paul Lo Duca       
Larry Bigbie        Jason Giambi        Nook Logan         
Barry Bonds         Jeremy Giambi       Josias Manzanillo  
Ricky Bones         Jay Gibbons         Gary Matthews Jr.  
Kevin Brown         Troy Glaus          Cody McKay         
Paul Byrd           Juan Gonzalez       Kent Mercker       
Alex Cabrera        Jason Grimsley      Bart Miadich       
Jose Canseco        Jose Guillen        Hal Morris         
Mark Carreon        Jerry Hairston Jr.  Daniel Naulty      
Jason Christiansen  Matt Herges         Denny Neagle       
Howie Clark         Phil Hiatt          Rafael Palmeiro    
Roger Clemens       Glenallen Hill      Jim Parque         
Paxton Crawford     Darren Holmes       Andy Pettitte      
Jack Cust           Todd Hundley        Adam Piatt         

Todd Pratt          Jeff Williams
Stephen Randolph    Matt Williams
Adam Riggs          Todd Williams
Armando Rios        Steve Woodard
Brian Roberts       Kevin Young
John Rocker         Gregg Zaun
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Gary Sheffield
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White

Everybody in baseball -- commissioners, club officials, the players' association, players -- shares responsibility.

-- George J. Mitchell, issuing a report on use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball naming 86 past & current players, 13 December 2007

Workouts

I never stay away from workouts. I work hard. I've tried to take care of my body. I'll never look back and say that I could have done more. I've paid the price in practice, but I know I get the most out of my ability.

-- Carl Yastrzemski (1939-), American baseball player, Red Sox all-time leader in career RBIs, runs, hits, singles, doubles, total bases, and games played (second in home runs behind Red Sox great Ted Williams), last winner of the triple crown in the major leagues

Living A Second Time

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.

-- Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), author, neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

Fun Is Hope

If you can have just a little fun today, it's a sign that maybe the future will hold even more fun for you. Fun isn't just fun - it's hope.

-- Linda Richman, author, summa cum laude graduate of the school of hard knocks

Important Decisions

The interesting thing is that there are so few important decisions. You don't have to go in the "right" direction. You don't have to enter the "right" business. What you have to do is have made a decision as to what you're going to do and then you just have to figure out how to succeed at it.

-- Ken Oshman, CEO & Chairman of the Board, Echelon Corporation

It Will Not Matter

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, how big my house was, or what kind of car I drove. But the world may be a little better, because I was important in the life of a child.

-- Dr. Forest E. Witcraft (1894-1967), scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout administrator, Scouting Magazine, October 1950, p2

Half Time

In the game of life, nothing is less important than the score at half time.

-- anonymous

Worries Diminished

A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.

-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British philosopher, mathematician, essayist

I Write On Napkins

I write on napkins. One time, this seventeen-year-old waitress says to me, "Do you write on napkins because it doesn't count?" And bingo. That's exactly why I do it! When you're jotting on a napkin, you're not committing yourself. It's only a napkin, right? You can throw it away. You'd be surprised. It loosens you up. Some of the best stuff I've written has been done on napkins.

-- August Wilson (1945-2005), Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright

Power

You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything he's no longer in your power - he's free again.

-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-), Russian author and Nobel laureate