Quotes:

"Sexually, I think I have pretty much been around the block. But we've all pretty much been around the block these days. They probably ought to widen the lanes around the block to ease traffic...Susan enjoyed the occassional smack with her rumpty-tumpty. Jim, God love him. seemed somewhat disconcerted by this at first. He'd been around the block too, of course, but it was a block in a more sedate neighborhood. And I guess maybe he'd missed that particular address.
- Her Lord and Master by Andrew Klavan

"Although he'd lied and tried to hide his transgression, in the end, he realized now, he needed her to know. It was all about betrayal, the most intimate transaction between two people. She was part of the equation. How could he explain to her that as he bucked atop another woman it was she, Lydia, who filled his heart. That it was like racing one's car at a tree. How the moment before impact would be vivid with love of the very thing you were about to lose."
- Third Party by Jay McInerney

A toast - "To all the foolish people in this world, who can't reason themselves into doing the wrong thing."
-The Physicians - A Novel of Malpractice by Henry Denker

"I was moved by their friendship and faithfulness, the love these women had for one another...I also felt a pang for myself and other men. THis wasn't something members of my gender were likely to do."
- Dog Days by Jon Katz

"...she wondered gloomily if she should have stayed home and become a schoolmistress instead of a tycoon's mistress, taught class instead of teaching older men how to enjoy life. Maybe she should have married the local builder or someone like him and had a nice warm villa and three sons to look after her in her old age...The truth was, no man, not even the village builder, had ever asked her to marry him. All Filomena was good for was to be a mistress."
- Sailing to Capri by Elizabeth Adler

"The totally alientated person suffers from a terrible irrationality. The more successful he becomes in the eyes of the world, the greater his rage and the more he despises his victims. Because success is intolerable to him, he must destroy his own achievements, and because failure is equally intolerable, he finds himself doomed to assert himself in a struggle that is essentially meaningless because the most resounding triumph has no more validity in his own eyes than the most barren defeat.
What Hitler was committed to was his own rage, his own destructive fury. He destroyed first those for whom he had a residue of affection and those who were most like him and therefore more easily recogizable. He drove his own niece, Geli Raubal, who was his mistress, to suicide, and he killed Jews because they helped him when he was poor and because they served as the most easily available channel for his destructive energies. He killed Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser because it was intolerable that they should remain alive to remind him that he had depended on them. Thereafter killing became a habit, and he drew the logical conclusions: there was nothing to prevent him from killing everyone within reach.
The mass murderer who kills quietly and calmly, without bating an eye and without showing the slightest emotion, is a phenomenon of our own time, and is likely to be repeated. The instruments of mass destruction are at hand, waiting to be used. The dictator does not even have to press a trigger or push a button: it is enough that he shouold give a barely perceptible smile or any small signal agreed upon beforehand. Since the time of Hitler we must learn to watch for these small signals.
The psychopath in a position of supreme power is almost a commonplace, for no one except a psychopath wants supreme power. To enjoy power is to be damned; to enjoy arbitary power is to be damned beyond any hope of ultimate redemption. It is not only that power corrupts in ever widening circles, but it inevitably tends to be used senselessly and irrespponsibly, a fact well known to every little functionary place in a position of authority. Hitler was power raised to its ultimate potential: he was therefore totally corrupt and totally irresponsible. He gave himself many titles, but the one that gave him the greatest pleasure was Oberster Gerichtsherr, or Supreme Law Lord, which indicated that he was above all laws and responsible to no one. It was strange that he should have rejoiced in such a titoe, for there were few periods in this life when he had not regarded himself as above the law.
The rise to power of Hitler and his final downfall constitute the most crucial and mystifying event of this century. Other dictators arose, but there was semblance of logic in their decisions. They knew what they were doing, never saw themselves and sleepwalkers, and attempted to do some good by their own lights. Hitler, beyond good or evil, employed power to pursue his own private fantasies and compelled the Germans to act out his dreams and nightmares. The mystery is how he succeeded in transforming the Germans into his willing victims, and why they were so eager to march to their doom. If it can happen once, it can happen again."
- The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by Robert Payne (this is almost a whole page at the end of the introduction but it is my favorite page to summerize how amazing this book is; go buy or borrow a copy NOW! Almost 600 pages but kicks ass!)

"There remains the legend of the lean, hard apostle of destruction with the burning eyes and the seductive voice, who crowded into his life more victories than Alexander, Napolean, and Timurlane combined. In an age when nihilism lies close to the surface, he will inevitably find many imitators and followers. He knew that the world had never seen anyone like him, and he was certain that he would have many sons. He will always appeal to the nihilists, for he was the supreme nihilist. Politicians will study him to learn from his mistakes, and generals will envy him. Even in our own time we see soldiers and politicians conspiring together to kill millions of people simply because it is the simplest way to solve the problems they are incapable of solving in any other way. The world is still haunted by Hitler, and the air is still polluted with the lingering terror of his name. ... The face of Hitler will be remembered, but he had many faces...But the true face of Hitler was written across ravaged landscapes, on burning cities, on the electrified barbed wire of the concentration camps, on the wounds of dying men, and in the ditches in Poland and Russia where the dead were huddled together."
- More from - The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler by Robert Payne (from the conclusion, what a powerful book!)

"She began to feel it was all acting - photography, public appearances, her life - and not just the part when she was making movies. She learned to play at being Elizabeth Taylor, and it was a full-time job."
- Elizabeth by J. Randy Taraborrelli

"There's no particular option that's just right, but I think the basic ideas behind Buddhism are probably the most true to life and, one could argue, perhaps the most sophisticated. Along the way, as it evolved through different cultures, different forms of Buddhism picked up many colourful and supernatural elements that are a tad far-fetched (humans can't help it), like the idea of reincarnations, but the fundamentals are solid.
The key idea in this philosophy (more a philosopy than a religion, per se, because no god is involved) is that suffering is a natural part of human life and the only sure way to overcome suffering is to develop control over your mind, That is what I like. It puts the lous of control in the individual, the individual mind, and not in any external power. That's a refreshing concept. You can enjoy here and now because your thinking is clear, you dont have to look through the smoke of mystical, and your mind is not a passive victim of whiplash in the turbulence of external event. The comfort you get from being in charge of your own happiness does not rely on any false hope.
The brain is the mind is the individual, and it's our only hope. That's what I believe"
- Another Day in the Frontal Lobe by Katrina Firlik

"In an elderly person I could also add that the human spine wasn't designed (although that's not the right word) to last eighty-plus year. And because people aren't dying of all the infectious diseases they use to die of, they're living much longer and asking their spines to keep up the support, well past the point where their youthful, formerly well-hydrated discs have dried out.:
- Another Day in the Frontal Lobe by Katrina Firlik

All of these were found in Executive Instinct. An amazing book by Nigel Nicholson...Pick it up!

“It is time to get back to reality. We may have taken ourselves out of the Stone Age, but we haven't taken the Stone Age out of ourselves.”

“There are a million and one ways to run a company badly, but a common set of principals underpins excellence.”

“Our emotions are our radar in an uncertain world”

“Charisma doesn't only give you Nelson Mandela, it also produces Adolph Hitler. Dominance is a hairsbreadth from domineering.”

All of these were found in Secret Germany. A extremely interesting and informative book by Michael Biagent & Richard Leigh

"There are certain cultures and peoples for whom the problem of self-definition has been an incessant source of uncertainty, of anxiety - a matter not unlike that of a youth passing through the familiar 'identity crisis', and tormenting himself with baffling, seemingly unfathomable enigmas. 'Who am I?' 'What is this "thing", this elusive and mysterious "entity", that I call my "self"?' 'What is my true nature?' 'Why am I here?' 'What is the purpose of my existence?' 'How can I determine - if such a thing exists at all - what constitutes my "destiny"?' 'What is the character of my soul, assuming such a thing exists, and how does it differ from other people's?' ' such questions may not seem in the least applicable to the fact of being English or French. For centuries, however, they have been of obsessive relevance to the fact of being Russian or German. Unlike Englishmen or Frenchmen, Russians and Germans have consistently been tortured by the 'meaning' of being what they are. The nature of the 'German soul' has preoccupied German writers from Goethe, through Thomas Mann, to Gunter Grass and Seigfried Lenz, and the 'Russian soul' has preoccupied Russian writers from Pushkin, through Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Andrey Bely, to Andrey Bitov today."

"Rationality, for example, can indeed be a positive force, associated with culture, civilization, sanity, order, moderation, tolerance and humanity. But it also has its negative aspects: aridity, sterility, desiccated legalism, 'soulless bureaucracy', uniformity and a mechanical adherence to logic.
Conversely, irrationality can be a negative force associated with barbarism, madness, chaos, anarchy, intolerance, a frenzied orgiastic abandonment and 'bestiality'. Yet it has positive aspects, too: tenderness, affection, passion, intuition, imagination, inspiration, vitality, spontaneity, creative energy. None of these things originates in rationality. Only too often it stifles them."

Sweet Story:

I found this story in Windows of Hope, From the Editors of Reader's Digest. Just beautiful! Do something nice for someone today...buy a homeless person lunch, become a big brother, help an elderly person with their groceries. These things are all to forgotten in this society of motion and too little time.

“Sold! To the Young Man in the Shorts”
By Paul Harvey

You'd be amazed at the stuff that turns up in the police department property room. Police recover thing, then nobody claims them. Or evidence is held and released. All sorts of things. Cameras and stereo speakers, TV sets and tools and tool boxes and car radios. And once a year these unclaimed items are sold at auction. This year at the police auction in Kansas City, Mo., there was a large number of bicycles.
When the first bicycle came up and the auctioneer asked who'd start the bidding, a youngster right down in front said, “Five dollars.” Tiny youngster - ten - maybe 12.
“I've got five, will you give me ten? Ten, who'll bid 15?”
As the bidding continued the auctioneer looked back at the young man down front. The boy didn't respond.
Later another bicycle came up, and again the boy bid $5 but would go no higher. This went on through several bicycles. Each time the boy bid $5; never more. And $5 was not nearly enough. The bikes were selling for $35 or $50, and some even more than $100.
During a brief intermission, the auctioneer asked the boy why he had let some of those good bikes sell without bidding higher. The young man explained that $5 was all he had.
Back to the auction; there were cameras and CB radios still to be sold, and some more bicycles. On each bicycle, the boy bid $5. And on each, someone else bid much more.
But now the assembled crowd is beginning to notice the boy who always opens the bidding. The crowd is beginning to recognize what is happening.
After a tedious hour and a half, the auction is beginning to wind down. But this is still one bicycle left, and it is a dandy. A shiny, like-new, ten-speed with 27-inch wheels, dual-position brake levels, stem shifters and a generator light set.
The auctioneer asks, “Do I hear a bid?”
And the young man near the front - who by now has all but given up - quietly repeats: “Five dollars.”
And the auctioneer stops his chant. Just stops. Stands there.
And the audience is silent. Not one hand is raised. Not one voice calls out a second bid.
Until the auctioneers says: “SOLD! To the young man in the shorts and sneakers - for $5!”
And the crowd applauds.
And a small boy's face lights up like one of the most beautiful sights you ever saw, as he trades the $5 scrunched up in the sweaty fist for what is surely the most beautiful bike in the world.