This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
My generation is the first in my species to have put fitness next to godliness on the scale of things. Keeping in shape has become THE imperative of our middle age. The heaviest burden of guilt we carry into our forties is flab. Our sense of failure is measured by the grade on a stress test.
Dawn | Experience | People |
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
You lawyers are so nice and precise in shifting and scanning every word and letter that many times you stand more upon form than matter, upon syllables than the sense of the law.
Americans once expected parents to raise their children in accordance with the dominant cultural messages. Today they are expected to raise their children in opposition to them. Once the chorus of cultural values was full of ministers, teachers, neighbors, leaders. They demanded more conformity, but offered more support. Now the messengers are violent cartoon characters, rappers and celebrities selling sneakers. Parents are considered "responsible" only if they are successful in their resistance. That's what makes child-raising harder. It's not just that American families have less time with their kids; it's that we have to spend more of this time doing battle with our own culture.
People | Sense | Skepticism |
I regard this novel as a work without redeeming social value, unless it can be recycled as a cardboard box.
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
To what greater inspiration and counsel can we turn than to the imperishable truth to be found in this treasure house, the Bible?
Elizabeth II, born Elizabeth Alexandra May NULL
In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.
Enthusiasm | Inspiration | People | Work | Leadership |
God's acre was her garden-spot, she said; She sat there often, of the Summer days, little and slim and sweet, among the dead, her hair a fable in the leveled rays.
If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.
All my life, I have lived with the feeling that I have been kept from my true place. If the expression "metaphysical exile" had no meaning, my existence alone would afford it one.
I'll think about something else. I'll just sit quietly. If I could sit still. If I could sit still, maybe I could read. Oh, all the books are about people who love each other, truly and sweetly. What do they want to write about that for? Don't they know it isn't true? Don't they know it's a lie, it's a God-damned lie? What do they have to tell about that for, when they know how it hurts?
Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg
The Lord withdraws no one from their hell unless they see that they are in hell and wish to be led out.
God, the bitter misery that reading works into this world! Everybody knows that - everbody who IS everybody. All the best minds have been off reading for years. Look at the swing La Rouchefoucauld took at it. He said that if nobody had ever learned to read, very few people would be in love. Good for you, La Rouchefoucauld; nice going, boy. I wish I’d never learned to read.
I'm never going to accomplish anything; that's perfectly clear to me. I'm never going to be famous. My name will never be writ large on the roster of Those Who Do Things. I don't do anything. Not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that anymore.