Quotations

"My dad took me out to see a meteor shower when I was a little kid, and it was scary for me because he woke me up in the middle of the night. My heart was beating; I didn't know what he wanted to do. He wouldn't tell me, and he put me in the car and we went off, and I saw all these people lying on blankets, looking up at the sky."

— Steven Spielberg, American film director, born 1946

"I would warn you that I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or ugly, well-ordered or confused."

— Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher, born 1632

"Do not weep. Do not wax indignant. Understand."

— Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher, born 1632

"When I was 88 years old, I gave up meat entirely and switched to a plant foods diet following a slight stroke. During the following months, I not only lost 50 pounds, but gained strength in my legs and picked up stamina. Now, at age 93, I'm on the same plant-based diet, and I still don't eat any meat or dairy products. I either swim, walk, or paddle a canoe daily and I feel the best I've felt since my heart problems began."

— Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician, born 1903

"Children who grow up getting nutrition from plant foods rather than meats have a tremendous health advantage. They are less likely to develop weight problems, diabetes, high blood pressure and some forms of cancer."

— Benjamin Spock, American pediatrician, born 1903

"I'm ready to grow young again."

— Bruce Springsteen, American singer, born 1949

"I have woven a parachute out of everything broken."

— William Stafford, American poet, born 1914

"A thread well-followed, gently, will lead you to the center of the universe."

— William Stafford, American poet, born 1914

"If everyone had standards as low as those I have, no one would have writer’s block."

— William Stafford, American poet, born 1914

"For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."

— William Stafford, American poet, born 1914

"I heard a bird congratulating itself all day for being a jay. Nobody cared. But it was glad all over again, and said so, again."

— William Stafford, American poet, born 1914

"Below the 40th latitude there is no law; below the 50th no god; below the 60th no common sense and below the 70th no intelligence whatsoever."

— Kim Stanley, American actress, born 1925

"An excess of reason is itself a form of madness."

— Kim Stanley, American actress, born 1925

"It makes us a thread in a tapestry that has unrolled for centuries before us, and will unroll for centuries after us. We're midway through the loom, that's the present, and what we do casts the thread in a particular direction, and the picture of the tapestry changes accordingly. When we begin to try to make a picture pleasing to us and to those who come after, then perhaps you can say that we have seized history."

— Kim Stanley, American actress, born 1925