Quotations

"Perfect is boring, human is beautiful."

— Tyra Banks, American model, born 1973

"A smile is the most important thing you wear."

— Tyra Banks, American model, born 1973

"To Alef, the letter, that begins the alphabets of both Arabic and Hebrew–two Semitic languages, sisters for centuries. May we find the language that takes us to the only home there is – one another's hearts. Alef knows that a thread of a story stitches together a wound."

— Ibtisam Barakat, Palestinian-American poet, born 1963

"When I love, I do it without counting. I give myself entirely. And each time, it is the grand love of my life."

— Brigitte Bardot, French actress, born 1934

"If only every man who sees my films did not get the impression he can make love to me, I would be a lot happier."

— Brigitte Bardot, French actress, born 1934

"I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals."

— Brigitte Bardot, French actress, born 1934

"But the ear, let us not forget, starts operating on the forty-fifth day of the pregnancy of a woman. Seven and a half months advance over the eye... but what do we do in our society, in our civilization, to continue this process?"

— Daniel Barenboim, Argentinian-Israeli conductor, born 1942

"Every great work of art has two faces, one towards its own time and one towards future, towards eternity."

— Daniel Barenboim, Argentinian-Israeli conductor, born 1942

"There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle."

— Daniel Barenboim, Argentinian-Israeli conductor, born 1942

"And in English you have this wonderful difference between listening and hearing, and that you can hear without listening, and you can listen and not hear."

— Daniel Barenboim, Argentinian-Israeli conductor, born 1942

"I believe often that death is good medical treatment because it can achieve what all the medical advances and technology cannot achieve today, and that is stop the suffering of the patient."

— Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon, born 1922

"On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned."

— Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon, born 1922

"Suffering isn't ennobling, recovery is."

— Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon, born 1922

"I had bought two male chimps from a primate colony in Holland. They lived next to each other in separate cages for several months before I used one as a [heart] donor. When we put him to sleep in his cage in preparation for the operation, he chattered and cried incessantly. We attached no significance to this, but it must have made a great impression on his companion, for when we removed the body to the operating room, the other chimp wept bitterly and was inconsolable for days. The incident made a deep impression on me. I vowed never again to experiment with such sensitive creatures."

— Christiaan Barnard, South African cardiac surgeon, born 1922