Aaah, summer - that long anticipated stretch of lazy, lingering days, free of responsibility and rife with possibility. It's a time to hunt for insects, master handstands, practice swimming strokes, conquer trees, explore nooks and crannies, and make new friends.

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.

You can scroll through my iTunes and I've got everything. I've got Ace Hood, Alt-J, Annie Lennox, Arctic Monkeys, Beanie Sigel, the Beatles, Beth Hart, Big Sean, Bob Dylan, Bon Iver, Chief Keef, Coldplay, the Flaming Lips, Mariah Carey, Miley Cyrus, Nicki Minaj, OutKast, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel, the Smiths, and the list goes on from there.

As a result of 50 years of emancipation, feminine qualities were dying out or being transferred to the males. Pansies of both sexes were everywhere, not yet completely homosexual, but confused not knowing what they were. The result was a herd of unhappy sexual misfits... the women wanting to dominate and the men to be nannied.

We do not have a crisis at Freddie Mac, and particularly Fannie Mae, under the outstanding leadership of Frank Raines.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

Although nannies who cover more than one generation are rare, those like Veronica Crook - who looked after me and now looks after my four children - are pearls of great price. They provide a continuity and stability for a family that is of inestimable value for the child and, indeed, the man.

Family holidays and weekends are really brightly colored memories, full of my mother and father, rather than our nannies and au pairs.

You can design a mortgage system that is different without a Fannie and Freddie, but there are principles you have to have, to have a good system.

I think drama in schools shouldn't be about, 'Let's put 'Annie' on this year' - not that there's anything wrong with that - but it's a good way of getting kids to interact, and it can be a good communication tool.

People have nannies and big cars, and they want to go to Maui for Christmas. When there are those kind of stakes involved, people get ruthless.

I lived in Beverly Hills for years. I always had a line, 'I hate the rich.' From what I witnessed after living there for 15 years, these people just don't raise their kids. I used to see the lineup of cars in front of the schools and it was all the nannies.

"Helmina,' said Tannie Engels, 'you always keep the shiny side up. But you can't make gold from cow shit.'

Life is a journey, Frannie darling," Feagan had once told me. "Choose well those with whom you travel.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language.

You can't test courage cautiously." (Annie Dillard)

Once upon a time there were as many ways to be holy as there were people, and the space between secular and monastic, between laity and clergy, was filled with all sorts of strange books and crannies. You could have visions, dream dreams, you could be monastic from the four walls of your own house or you could wander the country barefoot and begging. But we've lost much of that over the centuries.

And why are we supposed to be serious about God? Did God show up and crack the whip? "You there, Annie in Ohio, I see you laughing a lot and frankly it really pisses Me off . . . " (50)

When a fixed code of laws, which must be observed to the letter, leaves no further care to the judge than to examine the acts of citizens and to decide whether or not they conform to the law as written; then the standard of the just or the unjust, which is to be the norm of conduct for the ignorant as well as for the philosophic citizen, is not a matter of controversy but of fact; then only are citizens not subject to the petty tyrannies of the many which are the more cruel as the distance between the oppressed and the oppressor is less, and which are far more fatal than those of a single man, for the despotism of many can only be corrected by the despotism of one; the cruelty of a single despot is proportioned, not to his might, but to the obstacles he encounters.

Je?eli ludzko?? bez wyj?tku raz wyrzeknie si? Boga (...), to sam przez si?, bez ludo?erstwa, upadnie ca?y stary ?wiatopogl?d, przede wszystkim za?, ca?a stara moralno??, i nast?pi wszystko nowe. Ludzie zjednocz? si?, by wzi?? od ?ycia wszystko, co ono da? mo?e dla szcz??cia i rado?ci na jednym tylko ?wiecie, na tym ?wiecie. Cz?owiek wzniesie si? do boskiej, tytanicznej dumy i zjawi si? cz?owiek-b?g. Nieustannie pokonuj?c przyrod?, ju? bez granic, wol? sw? i nauk? cz?owiek b?dzie odczuwa? w tym rozkosz tak wznios??, ?e mu zast?pi ona ca?kowicie dawn? nadziej? na niebieskie rado?ci. Ka?dy pozna, ?e jest ?miertelny i nie licz?c ju? na zmartwychwstanie, powita ?mier? dumnie i spokojnie jak B?g. Pojmie w dumie swojej, ?e nie ma co szemra? na to, ?e ?ycie jest chwilk? tylko i pokocha brata swego ju? bez ?adnego wyrachowania na zap?at?. Mi?o?? b?dzie wype?nia?a tylko kr?tki moment ?ycia, lecz samo poczucie jej chwilowo?ci wzmocni jej ogie? niesko?czenie silniej, ni? dzi?, gdy rozp?ywa si? w nadziejach na mi?o?? pozagrobow? i niesko?czon?...

Now,I'm no scientist,but I know what endorphins are. They're tiny little magical elves that swim through your blood stream and tell funny jokes to each other. When they reach your brain,you hear what they're saying and that boosts your health and happiness. "Knock Knock... Who's There?.. Little endorphin... Little endorphin who?... Little Endorphin Annie." And then the endorphins laugh and then you laugh. See? Its Science.

I disapprove of matrimony as a matter of principle.... Why should any independent, intelligent female choose to subject herself to the whims and tyrannies of a husband? I assure you, I have yet to meet a man as sensible as myself! (Amelia Peabody)

To love someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love in everything new, you wonder every morning that this is one's own, as if they are afraid that someone will suddenly come tumbling through the door and say that there has been a serious mistake and that it simply was not meant to would live so fine. But as the years go by, the facade worn, the wood cracks here and there, and you start to love this house not so much for all the ways it is perfect in that for all the ways it is not. You become familiar with all its nooks and crannies. How to avoid that the key gets stuck in the lock if it is cold outside. Which floorboards have some give when you step on them, and exactly how to open the doors for them not to creak. That's it, all the little secrets that make it your home.