Quotations

"The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style."

— Fred Astaire, American actor, born 1899

"If it doesn't look easy it is that we have not tried hard enough yet."

— Fred Astaire, American actor, born 1899

"The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."

— Fred Astaire, American actor, born 1899

"The reminder that there are people who have worse troubles than you is not an effective pain-killer."

— Mary Astor, American actress, born 1906

"My system uses no apparatus. The resistance of your own body is the best and safest apparatus."

— Charles Atlas, American bodybuilder, born 1893

"The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?"

— David Attenborough, English environmentalist, born 1926

"The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love."

— Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet, novelist, born 1939

"There was a strange light, as if there was a film of silver over everything, like frost only smoother, like water running thinly down over flat stones; and then my eyes were opened and I knew it was because God had come into the house and this was the silver that covered heaven."

— Margaret Atwood, Canadian poet, novelist, born 1939

"We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know."

— W. H. Auden, Anglo-American poet, born 1907

"Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow."

— W. H. Auden, Anglo-American poet, born 1907

"In my deepest troubles, I frequently would wrench myself from the persons around me and retire to some secluded part of our noble forests."

— John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist, born 1785

"Look at that mallard as he floats on the lake; see his elevated head glittering with emerald green, his amber eyes glancing in the light! Even at this distance, he has marked you, and suspects that you bear no goodwill towards him, for he sees that you have a gun, and he has many a time been frightened by its report, or that of some other. The wary bird draws his feet under his body, springs upon then, opens his wings, and with loud quacks bids you farewell."

— John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist, born 1785

"When the bird and the book disagree, believe the bird."

— John James Audubon, French-American ornithologist, born 1785

"May I know myself so that I may know Thee."

— St. Augustine, Catholic Church theologian, born 354