It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. -Lewis Carroll,(1832-1898)

I'm not tense -- just terribly, terribly alert.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical
instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without
this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself. -Marcel Proust, (1871-1922)

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of
the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things
that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the
people who were alive, or who have ever been alive. -James Baldwin, writer
(1924-1987)