The Queen has done all she could on the dreadful subject of vivisection, and hopes that Mr. Gladstone will speak strongly against such a practice which is a disgrace to humanity.

I knew at that moment I had to make a choice. I could submit to everything that was happening and live a life of excuses or I could push myself make my life good.

I said to myself: what if I woke up, and every single day I did everything within my ability during that day to change my life. What could happen in just a month? A year?

I'd give it back, all of it, if I could have my family back.

If I had a magic wand, I would live in a building in New York, big enough so my friends, my family could all have apartments in it. We'd raise our kids in the same space and have backyard barbecues and get old and fat together.

Life has a way of doing that; one minute everything makes sense, the next, things change. People get sick. Families break apart, your friends could close the door on you.

Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.

I have no way of knowing how people really feel but the vast majority of those I meet couldn't be nicer. Every once in a while someone barks at me. My New Year's resolution is not to bark back.

At one time I smoked but in 1959 I couldn't think of anything else to give up for Lent so I stopped - and I haven't had a cigarette since.

At school there was an annual school disco and I'd be standing in my bedroom wondering what to wear for hours on end. Eventually I'd arrive at a decision that was just the most ridiculous costume you could have ever devised - I think it was probably knitted Christmas jumpers on top of buttoned-up white shirts.

My father died when I was young and I was raised by my grandmother Emma Klonjlaleh Brown. We could afford to eat chicken just once a year on Christmas.

In the spring of 1994 I decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. I had made the decision 12 years earlier Christmas Day of 1982 just after I had been first elected to a full term that I would do the best I could for a limited time.

From the time that I can remember I worked to make money - either baby-sitting or one year wrapping gifts at a department store at Christmas so I could have my own money.

When you have kids you instantly feel that you do not want to do them wrong. Those dads that go off to Florida and start a new life I couldn't imagine that: seeing my kid once every Christmas every three years. If I'm gone for six days it feels like too much.

To me as long as we've known each other I've always thought Mick's most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.

The biggest risk I've ever taken is going on American Idol and trying to be myself. I wasn't going to try too hard to conform and I knew that it could possibly not work out.

A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.

If my kid couldn't draw I'd make sure that my kitchen magnets didn't work.

I will say that the idea of a woman being deceptive came from that original discussion with critics and reporters about if woman could do that kind of thing. Evelyn herself grew out of the discussions about how capable women are of deceit and lying and manipulation.

The trouble with women umpires is that I couldn't argue with one. I'd put my arms around her and give her a little kiss.

I just love bossy women. I could be around them all day. To me bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading.

Oh if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.

But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.