Saturday night at my house, I often trot out classic movies and force the urchins to watch them. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I think it's important to teach kids about American culture, and films are certainly a big part of it.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.

Anyone who watched George W. and Karl Rove while the former was governor of Texas will recognize a familiar pattern. Like much of Bush's social policy - from faith-based social services to railing against gay marriage - women's issues are one of the bones they've decided they can throw to the Christian right.

When I think of a merry, happy, free young girl - and look at the ailing, aching state a young wife generally is doomed to - which you can't deny is the penalty of marriage.

Sailing is the closest I can get to nature - it's adrenaline, fear, a constant challenge and learning experience, an adventure into the unknown. And of course there is nothing better than wearing the same T-shirt for days and not brushing my hair for weeks.

Diana, whatever her failings, was not into making money, or as Harry and Meghan put it, financial independence.

What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.

I always thought the biggest failing of Americans was their lack of irony. They are very serious there! Naturally, there are exceptions... the Jewish, Italian, and Irish humor of the East Coast.

The humor is essentially dark for a cartoon and sophisticated. But at the same time, being a cartoon gives the writers more freedom than in a normal sitcom. It always pushes the line that, despite human failings, the Simpsons are really decent people.

Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.

In a way, a lot of my humor comes from presenting things that are dramatic or shocking and then people not having socially appropriate responses, having people denying the drama by failing to react to it, and that's a really classic form of humor.

Usually, if you notice good cinematography, then the cinematographer's failing. I try to make light feel like it's always motivated and natural in some way and hope that the lighting goes unnoticed.

Part of the failing of mainstream history has been a reverential air often appended to the colonial era, underpinned by a rose-tinted nostalgia for a lost empire.

If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

We shall not be happy unless we live like good animals, unless we enjoy the exercise of the ordinary functions of life: eating, sleeping, loving, walking, running, swimming, riding, sailing.

Scientists will eventually stop flailing around with solar power and focus their efforts on harnessing the only truly unlimited source of energy on the planet: stupidity. I predict that in the future, scientists will learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel.

My big brother Ryan was funny and unfailingly kind. He was one of the most talented musicians you might encounte, and had a prodigious ability to pick up any instrument and play it by ear within the span of a single day.

I'm quite obsessed with the idea of nailing the girl friendship. It's such an art, so delicate.

Friendship is also about liking a person for their failings, their weakness. It's also about mutual help, not about exploitation.

Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings.

All the characters in my films are fighting these problems, needing freedom, trying to find a way to cut themselves loose, but failing to rid themselves of conscience, a sense of sin, the whole bag of tricks.

As soon as you step into the water, you are part of the food chain; you're part of the wilderness. That's why I like solo sailing. You can be macho, but at least you can be macho on your own.