"Some of the most devastating things that can happen to you will teach you the most."
- Ellen DeGeneres

"More people have climbed Mount Everest than have circumnavigated the globe."

"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, and make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean."
- Aldous Huxley in the Forward to Brave New World

"They're long because they can't be wide."
- Regarding Viking River Cruises, et. al.

"Let me be used how the Lord sees fit."
- Olympic Gold Medalist Allyson Felix

"The Theory of Relativity occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that motivation."
- Albert Einstein

where the deals are cut

www.themonocle.com

Korean etiquette

"Never pour your own beer."

your moment of zen

A parable referenced in Charlie Wilson's War:

There is this very rich family with a son in this village. And they get the son a horse for his birthday. A villager comes to the Zen master and says, “how nice that they can get their son such a grand gift for his birthday.” The Zen master replies, “we will see.” A few years pass and the son falls off the hoarse and breaks his leg bad and it does not heal properly and he can’t walk well. A villager comes to the Zen master and says, “too bad he got that hoarse for his birthday.” The Zen master replies, “we will see.” Later in life, war breaks out. Many of the young men in the village are sent off to war to die, but not the son because of his bad leg. A villager comes to the Zen master and says, “good thing that guy broke his leg.” The Zen master replies, “we will see.”

Hat tip: RJ 

"Writing is about structure, discipline; all the things your teachers told you."
- J.K Rowling

Virginia Woolf was once told that she shouldn't write for the sake of her mental health.

routine

Jeff Goldblum has his teeth cleaned every three months.

Marcus Aurelius

"Greatest statue of antiquity: The Statue of Marcus Aurelius in the Musei Capitolini in Rome."

"When people keep secrets it's usually for a reason."
- John Dean

"I understood it until you explained it to me."
- Carl Sandburg

"Whiskey it is that makes you shoot at the landlord and miss."
- lyrics in The American Songbag

formula for happiness

"To be out of jail; to eat regular; to get what I wrote printed; and then a little love at home and a little outside."
- Carl Sandburg

"He loves to be needed as much as he needs to be loved."
- John Heilemann regarding Bill Clinton

"Everyone behaves badly given the chance."
- Tyrone Powers as Jake Barnes in the motion picture The Sun Also Rises. 

"Gazing man is keenest on sparing beauty. To most people [Tom] Thomson's country was a monstrous, dreary waste. Yet out of one little stretch he found riches undreamed of. Not knowing the conventional definition of beauty he found it all beautiful."
- A.Y. Jackson regarding Tom Tomson

burn

Robert:

That's certainly no life being a steer.

Mike:

Oh? You don't think so? I should have thought you would have loved being a steer, Robert.

Robert:

How do you mean, Mike?

Mike:

Well they lead such a sort of quiet life. They never say anything important and they're always hanging around. I should have thought you'd enjoy that.

From the 1957 film adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's 1926 The Sun Also Rises.  

chinese curse

"I hope you find fame and fortune early in life."

"To be normal is to have both positive and negative traits."
- Deepak Chopra

The Churchill Archives available here:

Nearly a million documents that make up Winston Churchill's archive, ranging from school reports, drafts of his famous wartime speeches, to cigar bills, have been made instantly accessible to students, historians, and even politicians looking for lessons from past coalition governments.

"You're not nervous, it's adrenaline."

primary concern

"I don't want be be dimly if at all remembered."

tip

"Don't drink cappuccino after 11am."

"War is a mutating monster."
- Carl von Clauswitz

"Aesthetics mean something."
- Isadore Sharp, The Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts founder

"Have no greed for followers."
- Buddha

why he doesn't eat meat

"Animals are nicer than humans."
- Morrissey

"One who loves music will never be unhappy."
- Ludwig van Beethoven

routine

"I bounce the ball eight times before I serve."
- Milos Raonic

routine

"You can only do a high-focus task for four hours at a time."
- Adam Gopnik on writing

"Obedience to orders is not always the right thing to do."
- Medal of Honor recipient Marine Sergeant Dakota Meyer

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow mindedness."
- Mark Twain

"The Atlantic is a bowl of bitter tears."
- James Joyce

one of Winston Churchill's watch makers

Breguet

Where Charlie Chaplin ate:

http://www.mussoandfrank.com/

"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing."

- Benjamin Franklin