"If we talk about literacy, we have to talk about how to enhance our children's mastery over the tools needed to live intelligent, creative, and involved lives."

Danny Glover
(born 22 July 1946),
American actor, film director, and political activist.

"I’m a different kind of music fan, so I expect my fans to be like me. I don’t know anything about my favourite artists, and I don’t really want to. When their music comes on, I just faint."

k.d. Lang
(born 2 November 1961), Canadian singer/songwriter.

"Movies are like magic tricks."

Jeff "The Dude" Bridges
(born December 4, 1949),
American actor and musician.

"In our lives, we are all in our little self-made prisons of identity, and half the fun of life is hatching an escape plan."

Benjamin Michael "Ben" Lee
(born 11 September 1978), Australian musician and actor.

"Caress the detail, the divine detail."

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
(22 April 1899 – 2 July 1977),
Russian-American novelist and short story writer.

"We are suffocated by writers who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, the theatre is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share secrets."

Howard Barker (born 28 June 1946), British playwright.

"We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine."

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken
(12 Sept. 1880 – 29 Jan. 1956), American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, and satirist.

"Some artists want your money so they can buy Range Rovers and diamond bracelets, but I don’t care about that kind of stuff. I want your soul."

Lady Gaga
(28 March 1986), American singer, songwriter, fashion designer, and performance artist.

"Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear, and with a manly heart."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(27 Feb. 1807 – 24 March 1882), American educator and poet.

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly."

Andy Rooney (born 14th January 1919),
American radio and TV writer and presenter.

"My mother was right: When you've got nothing left, all you can do is get into silk underwear and start reading Proust."

Jane Birkin
(born 14 December 1946), English actress, model, singer and film director.

"I would like to be Maria, but there is La Callas who demands that I carry myself with her dignity."

Maria Callas
(2 Dec. 1923 – 16 Sept. 1977), American-born Greek opera singers.

"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new."

Ralph Waldo Emerson
(25 May 25 1803 – 27 April 1882),
American essayist, philosopher, and poet.

"I may not lead the most dramatic life, but in my brain it's War and Peace every day."

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright
(born 22 July 1973),
Canadian-American singer-songwriter.

"I want to put a ding in the universe."

Steve Jobs
(born 24 Feb. 1955),
co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple Inc.

"First comes the sweat. Then comes the beauty - if you're very lucky and have said your prayers."

George Balanchine (22 Jan. 1904 – 30 April 1983),
Russia born choreographer; co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet.

"A work of art is the unique result of a unique temperament."

Oscar Wilde
(16 Oct. 1854 – 30 Nov. 1900),
Irish playwright, poet and author of numerous short stories and one novel.

"God, I hate LA. It's an evil place. So uncreative. You can't walk anywhere, that's what really gets me."

Sam Rockwell
(5 November 1968), American actor.

"I've been a rock star since I was very young, but I've never encountered anything as powerful as cancer."

Melissa Lou Etheridge
(born 29 May 1961), American singer-songwriter and musician.