Columnists From The United States

"Politics is history in the present tense."

"America is both North and South, White and Black, Republican and Democrat. We are laughter and loss, Saturday night and Sunday morning, Old Testament and New. Liberty and equality are not opposites in inevitable conflict, but act in concert under the practical balance of the Union. In the end, even war and peace are intimately entwined."

"No matter how love-sick a woman is, she shouldn't take the first pill that comes along."

"Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift... The hangover comes the day after."

"Being taken for granted can be a compliment. It means that you've become a comfortable, trusted element in another person's life."

"Hated, feared, and revered, he presided over Table 50 of the Stork Club on East 53d Street in Manhattan, creating and destroying celebrities at the drop of his trademark gray snap-brim fedora."

"At the height of his popularity, in the late 1930s, 50 million people—two-thirds of American adults—read Winchell's syndicated column and listened to his Sunday-night radio broadcast."

"Maybe Listening, not imitating, is the sincerest form of flattery."

"Religious belief, trust, a sense of connection to the universe — no matter what you call it, there is a spiritual component to strong families. They see their lives as imbued with purpose, reflected in the things they do for one another and the community. Small problems provide a chance to grow; large ones are a lesson in courage. A mother whose son died of a brain tumor bravely returned to the hospital where he had died in order to set up a research fund. When she saw the parents of children who currently were suffering, she told her son’s doctor: "If any research you do produces any advance, my son’s passing won’t have been totally without purpose." It takes a certain type of spiritual grace to see beyond one’s own misery to the needs of others. Strong families try to live so they can look outward — and inward — every single day."

"Strong families value their extended family, particularly grandparents. In one study of college students, a majority thought their interactions with grandparents reflected high family strengths. It’s important to create continuity between generations, passing along traditions and making roots ever stronger, so the tree continues to reach for the sun."

""We treat each other well" In strong families, positive strokes outnumber negative broadsides by a wide margin. Members regularly express appreciation: "Thanks for fixing the drainpipe." "you look so nice in that dress." "The dinner was great" Criticism is offered gently. After all, strong families figure, if we can be kind to strangers, why not to one another."

"In strong families, positive strokes out-number negative broadsides by a wide margin. Members regularly express appreciation: "Thanks for fixing the drainpipe." "You look so nice in that dress." "The dinner was great." Criticism is offered gently. After all, strong families figure, if we can be kind to strangers, why not to one another?"

"While parents are naturally in a leadership role, strong families strive to share decision-making. They resolve differences by respecting other viewpoints and accepting compromise solutions. One family decided to spend money on a son's music lessons rather than replace worn carpeting. The compromise was to pitch in and clean the carpet. In another family, everyone but the youngest daughter loved to ski. They rented a vacation condo with plenty of activities for the daughter, and the skiers accepted an hour's drive to the slopes."

"Strong families use the word "we" a lot, but "I" is never forgotten. Family members know they have the freedom to go off on their own, even if the direction is one that "we" have never followed before. The family message is, "We're behind you, so you can be you.""

""Our family comes first" Strong families support each other's dreams; they sacrifice to show support. A friend turned down a company trip to the Bahamas so he could attend his son's championship soccer game. "the beach will always be there," he said, "but my son won't always be 14 and team captain." this "family first" attitude begins with a bond of loyalty between marital partners. But single-parent families (28% of all families with children, according to the latest census) can be just as successful in raising strong children if they develop a "family first" attitude."

"If your energy is as boundless as your ambition, total commitment may be a way of life you should seriously consider."

"Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery."

"Accept that all of us can be hurt, that all of us can — and surely will at times — fail. Other vulnerabilities, like being embarrassed or risking love, can be terrifying, too. I think we should follow a simple rule: if we can take the worst, take the risk."

"Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, "making it", or success."

"An individual's self-concept is the core of his personality. It affects every aspect of human behavior: the ability to learn, the capacity to grow and change. A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success in life."

"The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top."

"Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success."

"The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have."

"We control fifty percent of a relationship. We influence one hundred percent of it."

"No matter how much pressure you feel at work, if you could find ways to relax for at least five minutes every hour, you'd be more productive."

"When you come right down to it, the secret of having it all is loving it all."

"When you look at your life the greatest happinesses are family happinesses."

"In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do you ever find them."

"Trust your hunches... Hunches are usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level. Warning! Do not confuse your hunches with wishful thinking. This is the road to disaster."

"Don’t fool yourself that you are going to have it all. You are not. Psychologically, having it all is not even a valid concept. The marvelous thing about human beings is that we are perpetually reaching for the stars. The more we have, the more we want. And for this reason, we never have it all."

"I don’t give advice. I can’t tell anybody what to do. Instead I say this is what we know about this problem at this time. And here are the consequences of these actions."

"Anger repressed can poison a relationship as surely as the cruelest words."

"Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces; marriage is also three meals a day, sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash."

"Love comes when manipulation stops; when you think more about the other person than about his or her reactions to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable."

"Before your dreams can come true, you have to have those dreams."

"The best proof of love is trust."

"If Shakespeare had to go on an author tour to promote Romeo and Juliet, he never would have written Macbeth."

"The sheep are down at the water, a-drinkin' their bloomin' fill, An' me and the dog are dozin', as herders and collies will; The world may be movin' somewheres, but here it is standin' still."

"He is the last of that old guard defending Cattle Land, Those knights who jousted for the cause — blood brothers of the brand; But now they’ve fenced the water-hole, they’re harrowing the plain, They’re changing all the sagebrush flats to fields of waving grain; The cowmen will be gone, they say, and there are no recruits — Good-bye, brave cattle-puncher in the high-heeled boots!"

"It was jest another instance of a flaw in work of man; A lefty never figgered in the gunman’s battle plan; There ain’t no scheme man thinks of that Dame Nature cannot beat — So his pupils are unlearnin’ that cute trick they got from Pete."

"It's hard to think that in cities there's men who are goin' to mad, Each strivin' to beat his fellows and get what the others had; And from this here peaceful viewpoint, such doin's look bad, plum bad."

"Out where the handclasp’s a little stronger, Out where the smile dwells a little longer, That’s where the West begins."

"We used to run a cow-ranch, In all that old term meant, But all our ancient glories In recent years have went; We’re takin’ summer boarders, And, puttin’ it quite rude, It’s now the cowboy’s province To herd the festive dude."

"There ain't no leaves to turn to gold— There ain't a tree in sight— In other ways the herder's told October's come, all right."

"We welcome folks in Cactus Center if they've got an honest lay; If their game ain't too durn crooked, we never stop the play; But a get-rich-quicker blew in, with a game we did n't like, So we did n't waste the minutes in invitin' him to hike."

"Out among the big things — The heights that gleam afar — A feller gets to wonder What means each distant star; He may not get an answer, But somehow, every night He feels, among the big things, That everything’s all right."

"Out among the big things — The mountains and the plains — An hour ain’t important, Nor are the hour’s gains; The feller in the city Is hurried night and day, But out among the big things He learns the calmer way."

"Can't-do guys do all right in Washington, perhaps because lobbying is the one thing that can't-do guys almost always can do, and magnificently. Detroit may not be able to dispose of exhaust very neatly, but it can build a beautiful lobbying machine for selling Government the story of its own inadequacy. What is it in the Washington air that restores the energies of these once dynamic American manufacturers? Something there is that brings out all the latent half-forgotten ingenuity that seems to have abandoned them back in the home plant."

"Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong."

"Most English speakers do not have the writer's short fuse about seeing or hearing their language brutalized. This is the main reason, I suspect, that English is becoming the world's universal tongue: English-speaking natives don't care how badly others speak English as long as they speak it. French, once considered likely to become the world's lingua franca, has lost popularity because those who are born speaking it reject this liberal attitude and become depressed, insulted or insufferable when their language is ill used."