Quotations

"Say yes and you'll figure it out afterwards."

— Tina Fey, American comedian, born 1970

"A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money."

— W. C. Fields, American actor, born 1880

"It’s morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money."

— W. C. Fields, American comedian, born 1880

"It may be that the strongest instinct of the human race, stronger than sex or hunger, is curiosity: the absolute need to know. It can and often does motivate a lifetime, it kills more than cats, and the prospect of satisfying it can be the most exciting of emotions."

— Jack Finney, American author, born 1911

"Would you have references? I'm awfully sorry but I haven't. I just arrived in New York, and don't know a soul. Except you. I smiled but she didn't smile back. She stood hesitating, and I said, It's true that I'm an escaped convict, an active counterfeiter, and occasional murderer. And I howl during the full of the moon. But I'm neat."

— Jack Finney, American author, born 1911

"I remember saying to myself those things are very, very important to hear, but there must be another way to say them so that they will truly be heard. I mean, that's what art is. Art is about being provocative. Art is also about beauty. And if you leave the latter out, the former doesn't matter."

— Nikky Finney, American poet, born 1957

"Meditation is doing what you are doing - whether you are doing formal meditation or child care."

— Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, born 1946

"We now see that the only way that we could love ourselves is by loving others, and the only way that we could truly love others is to love ourselves. The difference between self-love and love of others is very small, once we really understand."

— Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, born 1946

"Why would we have to know everything all the time? Why do we have to be so knowledgeable, so smart, so in control? We don’t! There’s no need to figure everything out. We can just be alive. We can breathe in and breathe out and let go and just trust our life, trust our body. Our body and our life know what to do. The problem is to let them do it, to relax and let them guide us."

— Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, born 1946

"The Bodhisattva body, the Buddha body, is the perfect eternal beautiful body hidden in the earthly body of impermanence and decay."

— Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, born 1946

"Years ago I went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and did what all tourists there do: wrote some words on a scrap of paper that I tucked into a crevice in the wall. When I closed my eyes and touched my head to the warm stone, it came to me: "All language is prayer." This must be so. Who is it we are speaking to when we speak to anyone? To that person, and also past him or her to Out There. If there is language, it means there is the possibility of being heard, being met, being loved. And reaching out to be heard, met, or loved is a holy act. Language is holy."

— Norman Fischer, American Soto Zen roshi, born 1946

"I turn out all the lights and work in the dark."

— Sharon Fithian, American artist, born circa 1955

"The only thing better than singing is more singing."

— Ella Fitzgerald, American jazz vocalist, born 1917

"I stole everything I ever heard, but mostly I stole from the horns."

— Ella Fitzgerald, American jazz vocalist, born 1917