"Contract Bridge is likely the most challenging card game extant; it is certainly the the most obsessive for its ranks of zealous followers. The initial progenitor of all Bridge forms is the game of Triumph, which gained currency about A.D. 1500. In the mid seventeenth century, Triumph evolved into Whist, a partnership game for four players. The change from Whist to Bridge occurred about 1886with a publication in London of a small pamphlet, titled Biritch or Russian Whist."

"Because the fluctuations in the composition of the deck as it is dependent over successive (and dependent) trials, it is intuitively apparent that altering decisions or the magnitude of the wager or both in accordance with the fluctuations should prove advantageous to the player."

"Blackjack does possess a memory (the interdependence of the cards) and a conscience (inferior play will inevitably be penalized) and is not democratic (the mental agility and retentiveness of the player are significant factors)."

"In 1423, the Franciscan friar St. Bernardino of Siena preached a celebrated sermon against cards (Contra Alcarum Ludos) at Bologna, attributing their invention to the devil. Despite such ecclesiastic interdiction, Johannes Gutenberg printed playing cards the same year as his famous Bible (1440). The cards from Gutenberg's press were Tarot cards, from which the modern deck is derived."

"Although the major gambling casinos do not maintain statistical records on the results of games of Craps, one event has been recorded-that wherein a young man achieved 28 consecutive "passes" at the Desert Inn Casino, Las Vegas, Nevada (June 10, 1950). Odds against such an event are 400 million to 1."

"The first-known public lottery was sponsored by Augustus Caesar to raise funds for repairing the city of Rome; the first public lottery awarding money prizes, the Lotto de Firenze, was established in Florence in 1530."

"The hope of a positive expected gain lies in detecting a wheel with sufficient bias."

"While no rigorous proof of an optimal strategy has been achieved, Robbins has proposed the principal of "staying on a winner" and has shown it to be uniformly better than a strategy of random selection."

"Against human opposition the machine usually emerges victorious, since individual patterns tend to be not random but a function of emotions and previous training and experience."

"Coin matching and finger flashing were among the first formal games to arise in the history of gambling. The class of Morra games extends back to the pre-Christian era, although not until comparatively recent times have game-theoretic solutions been derived."

"Generally, a betting system for which each wager depends only on present resources and present probability of success is known as a Markov betting system."

"The French philosopher Pierre-Hyacinthe Azaïs (1766-1845) formalized the statement that good and evil fortune are exactly balanced in that they produce for each person an equivalent result."

"There are no conventional games involving conditions of uncertainty without risk."

"The essence of the phenomenon of gambling is decision making. The act of making a decision consists of selecting one course of action, or strategy, from among the set of admissible strategies."

"A proven theorem of game theory states that every game with complete information possesses a saddle point and therefore a solution."

"In general statistics can be considered as the offspring of the theory of probability, it builds on its parent and extends the area of patronymic jurisdiction."

""Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo" is a euphemism for closing a single gaming table. It was last accomplished at the Casino Ste. des Bains de Mer during the final days of 1957, with a harvest of 180 million francs."

"Shortly after pithecanthropus erectus gained the ascendancy, he turned his attention to the higher-order abstractions."

"In our most Puritan of society, gambling-like other pleasures-is either taxed, restricted to certain hours, or forbidden altogether. Yet the impulse to gamble remains an eternal aspect of the irrationality of man. It finds outlets in business, war, politics, in the formal overtures of the gambling casinos, and in the less ceremonious exchanges among individuals of differing opinions."

"I would much rather sit, dimmed by inattention, and study the atmosphere and the silence and dance between people, but often times I’m not offered this privilege. The necessity for isolation, and the striving for attention is the only contradiction I find in being a writer and an actress."

"Masiela was a soft-spoken, gentle, and ethereal little girl with absolutely no tincture of rebellion in her make-up."

"Sing your song, unforgiving siren, Part the curtain clouds with your faithful entrance, And clear your voice. Pour your song of milk onto this land of yours."

"You have marked your loyal entrance through water and sky, I cannot quite reach you, but by me you lie."

"If I could I would kiss his wrists. If I had half the courage to face his pain."

"Charity befriends the children— From us, through us, in us. Behind this door, Charity waits. Alone. Tolerant. With a smile as deep as your core."

"The soul that rides deep through our veins, Our red rivers, and smiles. This darling soul, as endearing As dead poets and countries. This restless soul that neighbors our hearts. A perfect torch that guides our flames To immortality."

"In the end we're all searching for our home, that one place where we belong."

"I would like my books to stand as a tool to unbind children from expectations of poetry because it should free the child to self-expression and exploration."

"While some mothers sing lullabies to their children, my mother read me poetry. And to this day, I associate my strongest and most insistent feelings with words lyrically organized on a page."

"I would like to see from women in this industry what I have had the privilege of witnessing for a decade now. Strength, conviction, and unapologetic sensitivity for the healing of souls."

"All three elements of storytelling carry one vital philosophy– to offer universal insight, and many instances, hope and therapy to those who absolutely need it. To illuminate a combined and universal purpose, whether it be through the written word, the spoken word, or both elements incorporated into another element of truth. All exist to tell a story to the world."

"It came about like a typical audition where the actress doesn’t know a soul in the room, and exposes her heart and vulnerability in hopes of winning a handful of strangers’ affection."

"Although I was quiet as a child, I had this resistless passion inside of me–this need and hunger to create my own world. Poetry filled that void, and its words fed that vital necessity of ownership."

"I was an unassuming, skinny little girl."

"There’s a condensed softness about the Albanian people, and I’ve witnessed examples of their hospitality. Albanian blood runs through my veins and I am proud to call myself Albanian."

"My mother's only wish was to start a life in America because America was the cradle of every promise and opportunity."

"My children's books are written on the belief that every child has a talent and a passion. Each story unfolds into an adventure of nurturing that confidence until a passion blooms."

"I feel it is our inherent duty as a humane society, above any intangible responsibility, to invest in our world's children’s potential, passion and confidence."

"It is the show that keeps giving. Every night it offers something to society, and it offered something to every one of us. It brought us all together for a lifetime.""

"Every one of us strives to be a better person; and if I am to contribute one thing of myself, it would be compassion."

"So we remain, forever more, Immortal and Found."

"Our nature as sensitive beings is far too complex to break apart, re-examine and reshape in a poem."

"When pursued with a pure heart, acting is an entirely selfless profession."

"Acting is not a lofty performance; it is simply the source of becoming and existing transparently. Acting, I find, is the art of frothing to the surface every raw and honest emotion. The moment an actor pretends, he loses his audience forever"

"If I cannot offer some relief to our world, if I cannot inspire our generation to join me, then I feel I am a complete waste of space. This constant fear of feeling irrelevant in our society has been the catalyst behind all my efforts and passions for as long as I can remember."

"Poetry is a lyrical insinuation. Often, its melodic subtlety kisses the subconscious mind."

"Brain drugs may make us feel better, but they do not solve the problems that led us to feel miserable"

"[Reality Therapy] is based on choice theory and focuses on improving present relationships, almost always disregards past relationships, and depends for its success on creating a good relationship between the client and the counselor."

"Beware of getting involved with people who seem to be able to feel good but have no close friends. They may be witty and fun to be around, but their humor is all put-downs and hostility. If you marry such a person, you will soon be the recipient of that hostile humor and may regret it for the rest of your marriage....Someone who does not have good friends does not know how to love."