Johnny Cash

I have no illusions about who I am and how old I am, but that has nothing to do with it when I'm in that studio or on that stage and that thing is coming out of me. That fire is just as bright and hot as when I was 23. I and the song are one-—and whatever I was meant to do with my music, I'm doing it.

Johnny Cash

You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don't try to forget the mistakes, but you don't dwell on it. You don't let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

Charlotte Brontë

Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.

--from Jane Eyre

Charlotte Brontë

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

--from Jane Eyre

Chan in "On A Clear Day"

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Theresa Cheung

Happy people generally know what they want and feel they are moving in the direction of getting it. That's what makes them happy.

from Chocolate Principles to Live By, p. 48

Harold McGee

A soft ganache is made with approximately equal weights of cream and chocolate. To make ganache, the cream is scalded and the chocolate melted into it to form a complex combination of an emulsion and a suspension. The continuous phase of this mixture, the portion that permeates it, is a syrup made from the cream's water and the chocolate's sugar.

from On Food and Cooking, p. 707

Yvonne Ruperti

I melted a standard ganache mixture of 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate and 2 tablespoons heavy cream (plus 1 tablespoon of confectioners' sugar for an extra hint of sweetness and 2 tablespoons of cream), let the mixture cool until it firmed enough to scoop, and then spooned a teaspoon of it onto the cupcakes before baking. As the cupcakes baked, the ganache gently sank into the batter. As I bit into the rich cake and its trufflelike center gushed slightly, I knew I'd hit chocolate nirvana.

--from "Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes," Cooks Illustrated, May 2010 (emphasis added)

30 Rock

Jack: You're a lion. Take what's yours.

30 Rock

Kenneth: [on coffee] I love how it makes me feel. It's like my heart is trying to hug my brain!

Dan Simmons

I am a city man, Dear Reader. Such exertions are not in my physical vocabulary.

Csikszentmihalyi

Attention is like energy, in that without it, no work can be done, and in doing work, it is dissipated. We create ourselves by how we invest this energy. Memories, thoughts, and feelings are all shaped by how we use it. And it is an energy under our control, to do with as we please. Hence, attention is our most important tool in the task of improving the quality of experience.

from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Unknown

Religious people go to church to pray that they won’t go to hell. Spiritual people go to church because they have already been to hell, and pray that they never go back.

Mae West

When women go wrong, men go right after them.

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

A dame that knows the ropes isn't likely to get tied up.

Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

I believe that it's better to be looked over than it is to be overlooked.

I didn't discover curves; I only uncovered them.

The curve is more powerful than the sword.

I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it.

I've been in more laps than a napkin.

Save a boyfriend for a rainy day - and another, in case it doesn't rain.

A hard man is good to find.

To err is human, but it feels divine.

When I'm good I'm very, very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the double meaning.

Good sex is like good Bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.

Mulla Nasrudin

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.