Joan Alexandra Molinsky (June 8, 1933 – September 4, 2014), known professionally as Joan Rivers, was an American comedian, actress, producer, writer and television host. She was known for her direct and sometimes controversial style. 

Rivers started her career in Greenwich Village comedy clubs alongside George Carlin, Woody Allen and Richard Pryor. She gained notoriety in 1965 as a guest on The Tonight Show. In 1986 she became the first woman to host a late night TV talk show. Later she hosted a daytime talk show, red carpet interviews, celebrity fashion commentary shows, and stared in two reality shows. She also marketed jewelry and apparel, authored 12 best-selling books, created comedy albums, was nominated for a Tony award for best actress in a play, and received an Emmy and a Grammy award.

Below we list some words of wisdom by Joan Rivers. 

“I wish I could tell you it gets better. It doesn’t get better. YOU get better.” 

“Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny.” 

“We don’t apologize for a joke. We are comics. We are here to make you laugh. If you don’t get it, then don’t watch us.” 

“I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.” 

“I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.” 

“When you can laugh at yourself no one can ever make a fool of you.” 

“Life is very tough, you know. You sit at a dinner party and talk to the person on your right or your left, you’re going to hear something terribly sad, or horrible, or awful. And you just laugh at everything. I think it was Winston Churchill who said something like, any time you get someone to laugh, you’re giving them a little vacation. It’s so true. You laugh for one second, you’re happy. I find in negotiations, everybody’s sitting around looking so serious, I say something funny and it breaks the ice. And it’s like, now we can get through this.” 

“Life is a movie, and you’re the star. Give it a happy ending.” 

“Moving on is a gift you give yourself.” 

“The fashion magazines are suggesting that women wear clothes that are ‘age appropriate.’ For me that would be a shroud.” 

“Nothing is yours permanently so you better enjoy it while it’s happening.” 

“Keep moving. It’s hard for old age to hit a moving target.” 

“Half of all marriages end in divorce- and then there are the really unhappy ones.” 

“Self-pity shortens your life.” 

“I’m in nobody’s circle; I’ve always been an outsider.” 

“With age comes wisdom. You don’t need big boobs to be feminine. Look at Liberace.”

“In life the only thing that you can expect is the unexpected; the only surprise is a day that has none.” 

“Your anger can be 49 percent and your comedy 51 percent, and you’re okay. If the anger is 51 percent, the comedy is gone.” 

“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I’ll consider it.” 

“A Mafia guy in Vegas gave me this advice: “Run your own race, put on your blinders.””

“When you first get married, they open the car door for you. Eighteen years now…once he opened the car door for me in the last four years – we were on the freeway at the time.” 

“I have no boobs whatsoever. On my wedding night my husband said, ‘Let me help you with those buttons’ and I told him, ‘I’m completely naked’.”

“People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.” 

“My daughter and I are very close, we speak every single day and I call her every day and I say the same thing, “pick up, I know you’re there.”” 

“There are many self-help books by Ph.D.’s, but I hold a different degree: an I.B.T.I.A.-I’ve Been Through It All. This degree comes not on parchment but gauze, and it entitles me to tell you that there is a way to get through any misfortune.”

“If you laugh at it, you can deal with it.” 

“We all mourn in our own way. I mourn with a great steak.”

“Just remember: Surviving is the best revenge, no matter what the disaster has been.” 

“I’ve learned to have absolutely no regrets about any jokes I’ve ever done.” 

“Marriage isn’t a contest to see who is most often right. Marriage requires being what the Japanese call ‘the wise bamboo,’ which means you bend so you don’t break. Treat your spouse with the flexibility and respect you would give to a top client. Think how we treat clients; We smile, we are polite, we listen to their ideas. Never forget that your spouse is your most important client.” 

“Something terrific will come no matter how dark the present.” 

“Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.” 

“A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she’s a tramp.” 

“Don’t cook. Don’t clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum.” 

“Money can’t buy you happiness but it can pay for the plastic surgery.” 

“In every human endeavor, persistence is everything.” 

“Comediennes are the lucky ones, because if you’re funny, you can be 125 years old and they will still accept you.” 

“I have a million-dollar figure … but it’s all loose change.”

“You know you’re getting old when work is a lot less fun and fun is a lot more work.” 

“To the pessimist the light at the end of the tunnel is another train.” 

“I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die they will donate my body to Tupperware.” 

“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.” 

“I said to my husband, ‘Why don’t you call out my name when we’re making love?’ He said, ‘I don’t want to wake you up.'” 

“I once dated a guy so dumb he could not count to 21 unless he was naked”

Copyright © 2026 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo

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Nicolas Cage (born Nicolas Kim Coppola on January 7, 1964) is an American actor, producer, and director known for his intense, unpredictable performances and versatility across genres. From his Oscar-winning role in Leaving Las Vegas to iconic films like The Rock, Face/Off, National Treasure, and Mandy, Cage has built a career defined by bold choices and emotional commitment. A member of the Coppola family, he changed his last name early in his career to forge his own path. Known for his dedication to the craft, he has appeared in over 100 films and remains one of Hollywood’s most distinctive and prolific stars.

Director Werner Herzog, who collaborated with Cage on several projects, praised him by saying, “Nicolas Cage is one of the few truly fearless actors working today — he dares to go where others would not even look.”

Below, we list some words of wisdom from Nicolas Cage, drawn from his interviews, writings, and public statements.

“To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new.”

“There’s a fine line between the Method actor and the schizophrenic.”

“For me, acting was a way of taking destructive energy and doing something productive with it, and in that way it was quite a life saver.”

“Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination.”

“I think it’s no secret that I’ve tried to take chances in my career and also in my life, and I believe to not live in fear.”

“Every great story seems to begin with a snake.”

“I am not a demon. I am a lizard, a shark, a heat-seeking panther.”

“Film acting is one of the only industries where you’re criticized for working hard.”

“The biggest problem for me was feeling that as I became more balanced and a better man that I wouldn’t have the fire to create from.”

“Acting is like any other art form, in that you have the option to go very big or go very small.”

“I wanted to have the mystery of the old stars, always preserved in an enigmatic aura.”

“I saw myself as a surrealist.”

“Western Kabuki to me was, let’s go all the way out.”

“You can go as big as you want as long as it’s honest.”

“I’m an enormous admirer of Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.”

“Work as much as you can. Good or bad, fall on your face or stand up — but get so in tune with your instrument that you know it so well.”

“I’m not afraid of failure. I’m afraid of not trying.”

“Those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.”

“Some things are true whether you believe in them or not.”

“I’ll speak for myself, but there’s a lot of humor to be found in sarcasm and darkness.”

“Rob Zombie once said to me, ‘Be as normal in your own life as you can be, so you can be as messed up as you want in your art.’”

“Acting is always at the core of my life.”

“Pain and failure are part of the journey. You have to embrace them.”

“The end of the world is on people’s minds. We have the power to destroy or save ourselves.”

“I just discovered this incredible Nicolas Cage quote: ‘Go in and be great like you know you’re great because that’s what you are.’”

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

“Life is full of surprises. You have to be ready to embrace the unknown.”

“I believe in pushing boundaries, both in art and in life.”


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Copyright © 2026 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo 

Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born May 23, 1933) is an English actress and author. She’s been married to her fifth husband, Percy Gibson, since 2002.

She trained as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London at age sixteen. She worked steadily in London and then made her Hollywood film debut in the historical drama The Virgin Queen in 1955.

After working in films and TV from the 50s-70s, Joan starred in the film version of her sister Jackie Collins’ novel The Stud in 1978, which was an international success. The sequel, The Bitch was released a year later. Both films helped her be cast in her most popular role as Alexis Colby in Dynasty, from 1981 to 1989.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Joan Collins.

“Age is just a number. It’s totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine.”

“The problem with beauty is that it’s like being born rich and getting poorer.”

“Love may be a dream but marriage is a nightmare.”

“The secret of having a personal life is not answering too many questions about it.”

“Life is a predator: you have to eat it before it eats you.”

“Life is not life unless you make mistakes”

“Dynasty was the opportunity to take charge of my career rather than waiting around like a library book waiting to be loaned out.”

“If you feel well and happy, your face will reflect this, but if you are down in the dumps and having a miserable time, your face will soon show this, too. In fact, you get the face you deserve by the time you’re forty, and one of the keys to looking and feeling younger is being active.”

“I used to not be confident. My father certainly didn’t add to my confidence. When I was 17 or 18, I was voted the most beautiful girl in England by the association of press photographers. When they called Daddy for a comment, he said, ‘I’m amazed. She’s a nice looking girl, but nothing special.'”

“My parents instilled in me that life was going to be very difficult and that I’d have to work for everything.”

“I never thought I was particularly good looking. But when I see old photographs, I realise that I was. I do wish I had known that at the time because beauty is power. I didn’t realise how lucky I was to be young, beautiful and in Hollywood. It didn’t hit me. Every day I woke up, went to the film studio and just got on with it.”

“It’s no one’s fault to be born ugly, but, honestly, must it be worn as a symbol of pride?”

“You can’t help getting older, but you can help yourself from becoming old and infirm, in mind as well as body.”

“I’ve always maintained that there is a very fine line between a daring, sexy older woman and mutton dressed as lamb.”

“My mother was a domestic goddess and Mother Earth figure. She was sweet and placid – just what the perfect wife was supposed to be and I was determined not to be.”

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I often wear wigs and have in fact launched my own Dynasty range, named after various characters. I find this saves a ton of time – as well as my own hair.”

“Doing 20 minutes of stretching, light weights and floor exercises three times a week takes the same amount of time as a long coffee break – and eating a tuna fish salad, sardines on toast or scrambled eggs is surely preferable to a Big Mac or KFC.”

“However much some journalists may criticize me, I know that I look, feel, and behave several decades younger than my actual age, and much of that is because I believe you are what you think you are. This is called positive affirmation, and it’s a really strong tool.”

“Loneliness is the universal problem of rich people.”

“Every woman should wear make-up. It takes years off. I’m wearing lots of false eyelashes today, and to me, lipstick is the best cosmetic that exists.”

“Only fine cigars are worth smoking and only men who smoke fine cigars are worth kissing.”

“We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It’s all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.”

“Jennifer Aniston is cute, but I wouldn’t call her beautiful. I think that is why Cheryl Cole is so popular, because she is just so pretty and the public are starved of gorgeous people. When I was young, everybody on screen was gorgeous.”

“I have always tried to live my life with enthusiasm and pleasure.”

“No, that’s what I think God does to you. He gives you some great gig in which you make a whole heap of money, and you’re just on top of the world and on every magazine cover, but your personal life is miserable. And for most of that time, I have to say, my personal life was pretty miserable.”

“I have never been the mousy, stand-two-paces-behind, obedient ‘little woman’ type.”

“If you eat junk, you look like junk. People say, ‘It’s not my fault, it’s my glands.’ It’s not; it’s greed!”

“One of the rules about being an actor or an actress is that you never diss other actors or actresses, particularly when you don’t know them.”

“Gone are the days when a gentleman lightly took your hand in his and brushed his lips across it, or tipped his hat to acknowledge you as he chivalrously stepped aside to let you pass.”

“If I need to cheer myself up, I will put on some fabulous ’40s musical on video. But I’m very lucky; I seldom get depressed. Without question, I’m a ‘glass half full’ person. In fact, it’s three-quarters full!”


Copyright © 2026 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo 

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/ 

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Albert Camus (November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French-Algerian philosopher, novelist, essayist, playwright, and journalist. Best known for his novels The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall, as well as his philosophical essays such as The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explored themes of the absurd, rebellion, freedom, and the human condition. Awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature for illuminating “the problems of the human conscience in our times,” he rejected the label of existentialist while advocating lucid awareness and revolt against meaninglessness. His humanism and moral clarity continue to resonate deeply.

Jean-Paul Sartre, despite their later philosophical disagreements, praised Camus early on, noting his “clear-sighted earnestness” and describing him as a writer who “illuminates the problems of the human conscience.”

Below, we list some words of wisdom from Camus, drawn from his novels, essays, and interviews.

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your existence is an act of rebellion.”

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

“Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken.”

“Live to the point of tears.”

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”

“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth.”

“Life is the sum of all your choices.”

“The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”

“In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.”

“People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves.”

“What is a rebel? A man who says no.”

“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.”

“Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.”

“Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle.”

“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.”

“Those who lack the courage will always find a philosophy to justify it.”

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

“To create is to live twice.”

“Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.”

“I may not have been sure about what really did happen, but I was sure about what I felt.”

“An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”

“Life can be magnificent and overwhelming—that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger it would almost be easy to live.”

“Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.”

“Greatness consists in trying to be great. There is no other way.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/ 

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Copyright © 2026 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo 

Jacqueline Jill Collins (October 4, 1937 – September 19, 2015) was an English romance novelist and actress. She relocated to Los Angeles in 1985 and spent most of her career there. She wrote 32 novels, all of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, and have sold more than 500 million copies. Her older sister is Joan Collins.

Her first book, The World Is Full of Married Men in 1968, became a best-seller. Forty years later, she admitted she was a “school dropout” and “juvenile delinquent” when she was 15. She “never pretended to be a literary writer.”

After the publication of her first novel, romantic novelist Barbara Cartland called the book “nasty, filthy and disgusting,” and accused Collins of “creating every pervert in Britain”. The book was banned in Australia and South Africa, but the scandal boosted sales in the United States and the UK.

Below we list some words of wisdom from Jackie Collins.

“The biggest critics of my books are the people who never read them.”

“I’m a storyteller, I’m not a literary writer, and I don’t want to be a literary writer. People say to me, “Oh, when are you going to write something different?” What? I don’t want to write anything different. I’m writing relationships between people, all different colors, all different sizes, all different sexual orientations, and that’s what I want to do.”

“If you want to be a writer-stop talking about it and sit down and write!”

“If you wrote a page a day, at the end of the year you would have a book. Whether it’s any good or not is beside the point, but you would have a book, instead of just talking about it all the time.”

“I have this theory that people in Hollywood don’t read. They read ‘Vanity Fair’ and then consider themselves terribly well read. I think I can basically write about anybody without getting caught.” 

“Men are cheaters. Women are not to be trusted. And most people are dumb.”

“I write about real people in disguise. If anything, my characters are toned down-the truth is much more bizarre.”

“If you want to achieve your dreams, you must follow them, and the best way to follow them is not to think about wanting to be very rich, but to think about doing something that you really want to do.”

“Love does not appear with any warning signs. You fall into it as if pushed from a high diving board. No time to think about what’s happening. It’s inevitable. An event you can’t control. A crazy, heart-stopping, roller-coaster ride that just has to take its course.” 

“I really fall in love with my characters, even the bad ones. I love getting together with them. They tell me what to do; they take me on a wild and wonderful trip.”

“Ideas are all around me. If I wasn’t interested in them myself, I don’t think anyone else would be either.”

“I write synopses after the book is completed. I can’t write it beforehand, because I don’t know what the book’s about. I invent something for my publisher because he asks for one, but the final book ends up very differently.”

“Your whole life is ahead of you. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“Whatever you have a passion for, then you must do. If you want to write, write about something you know about.”

“My weakness is wearing too much leopard print.”

“I love London and Los Angeles equally. I was born and brought up London and then I went to Los Angeles as a teenager to stay with my sister Joan. So I feel I belong to both.”

“I wake up in the morning and I still have a passion for what I do, and I’ll be doing it when I’m 105, I’ll be scribbling away. If it was 100 years ago I’d be sitting by the campfire, saying, “Have I got a story to tell you.””

“I try not to bore my readers.”

“I don’t like being in one place too long. Five days just about does it for me because I have a very low threshold for boredom.”

“People are intrigued by fame, power and wealth and I think Hollywood is the only place where you get all three together.”

“The easier you make it look, the more difficult it is. Creating characters out of nothing, and making them interesting – and that’s another advice I would give to writers.”

“My books flow. People say they pick them up and they can’t put them down. It’s because when I’m writing them I pick my pen up and I cannot put my pen down.”

“If you want to have great sex, find a partner who really turns you on. Pills are merely props, and props can turn out to be a big drag.”

Copyright © 2026 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo 

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/ 

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/ 

 
Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher best known for his 1818 work The World as Will and Representation. Often called the philosopher of pessimism, he developed a metaphysical system centered on the blind, striving “Will” as the underlying force of reality. His writings explore suffering, desire, art, compassion, and the human condition, drawing influences from Kant, Plato, and Eastern philosophy. Though largely ignored during his early career, Schopenhauer’s ideas later profoundly influenced thinkers such as Nietzsche, Freud, Einstein, and Wagner.

Friedrich Nietzsche, who was deeply shaped by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, wrote: “Schopenhauer’s thought was the first to strike me with its full force; it was like a thunderbolt.”

Below, we list some words of wisdom from Schopenhauer, drawn from his major works including The World as Will and Representation, Parerga and Paralipomena, and Counsels and Maxims.

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

“Compassion is the basis of morality.”

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.”

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”

“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”

“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”

“The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.”

“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.”

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”

“Boundless compassion for all living beings is the surest and most certain guarantee of pure moral conduct.”

“Life is never beautiful, but only the pictures of life are so in the transfiguring mirror of art or poetry.”

“We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack.”

“Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.”

“The two foes of human happiness are pain and boredom.”

“Human life must be some kind of mistake.”

“Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.”

“To overcome difficulties is to experience the full delight of existence.”

“The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.”

“A sense of humor is the only divine quality of man.”

“Hatred is a thing of the heart, contempt a thing of the head.”

“What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.”

“After your death you will be what you were before your birth.”

“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theater before the curtain is raised, sitting there in high spirits and eagerly waiting for the play to begin.”

“Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.”

“The fundament upon which all our knowledge and learning rests is the inexplicable.”

“Do not shorten the morning by getting up late, or waste it in unworthy occupations or in talk; look upon it as the quintessence of life, as to a certain extent sacred.”

“Truth that is naked is the most beautiful, and the simpler its expression the deeper is the impression it makes.”

“Life is short and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the truth.”

“The world is my representation.”


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Copyright © 2026 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo 

Thomas Lanier Williams III (March 26th, 1911 – February 25th, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. He is considered one of the foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama.

At age 33 Williams became famous with the success of The Glass Menagerie (1944) in New York City. It was the first of several successes, including A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), and The Night of the Iguana (1961). In 1979, four years before his death, he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Below we list words of wisdom from Tennessee Williams.

“You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.” 

“Don’t you think there is always something unspoken between two people?” 

“Living with someone you love can be lonelier than living entirely alone, if the one that you love doesn’t love you.”

“Success and failure are equally disastrous.”

“Nobody sees anybody truly, but all through the flaws of their own ego.”  

“Physical beauty is passing – a transitory possession – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart – I have all these things – aren’t taken away but grow! Increase with the years!”

“Not facing a fire doesn’t put it out.” 

“Friends are God’s way of apologizing to us for our families” 

“If you can’t be yourself, what’s the point of being anyone else?”

“There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors.” 

“All cruel people describe themselves as paragons of frankness.” 

“The object of art is to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment.” 

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.” 

“There are no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people. Some are a little better or a little worse, but all are activated more by misunderstanding than malice. A blindness to what is going on in each other’s hearts.” 

“There is a time for departure even when there’s no certain place to go.” 

“To change is to live, to live is to change, and not to change is to die.” 

“Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quickly you hardly catch it going.”

“The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that’s also a hypocrite!” 

“I don’t want realism. I want magic!” 

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it’s curved like a road through mountains.” 

“Don’t look forward to the day you stop suffering, because when it comes you’ll know you’re dead.” 

“The only unforgivable sin is deliberate cruelty.” 

“Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.” 

“Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose.”

“In memory everything seems to happen to music.” 

“Revolution only needs good dreamers who remember their dreams.”

“Enthusiasm is the most important thing in life.” 

“The scene is memory and is therefore nonrealistic. Memory takes a lot of poetic license. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart.” 

“Vanity, fear, desire, competition – all such distortions within our own egos – condition our vision of those in relation to us. Add to those distortions to our own egos the corresponding distortions in the egos of others, and you see how cloudy the glass must become through which we look at each other.” 

“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.” 

“We are all sentenced to solitary confinement inside our own skins, for life.” 

“Caged birds accept each other, but flight is what they long for.” 

“Snatching the eternal out of the desperately fleeting is the great magic trick of human existence.” 

“We lose the magic whenever we stop telling our story and begin to wonder how we’re doing, if we’re selling it, if the listener likes us. Just tell the story and go on to the next one. All of us are full of stories the world might want to hear.” 

“I don’t believe in ‘original sin.’ I don’t believe in ‘guilt.’ I don’t believe in villains or heroes – only right or wrong ways that individuals have taken, not by choice but by necessity or by certain still-uncomprehended influences in themselves, their circumstances, and their antecedents. This is so simple I’m ashamed to say it, but I’m sure it’s true. In fact, I would bet my life on it! And that’s why I don’t understand why our propaganda machines are always trying to teach us, to persuade us, to hate and fear other people on the same little world that we live in.”

“I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person. But these seemingly fragile people are the strong people really.” 


Copyright © 2026 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo 

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Leonard Bernstein (August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, pianist, music educator, and author. One of the most influential figures in 20th-century classical music, he served as music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969, composed the score for West Side Story, and created groundbreaking works such as Candide, Chichester Psalms, and his three symphonies. Through his Young People’s Concerts on television, lectures, and books like The Joy of Music, Bernstein brought classical music to millions, making it accessible and exciting to new generations.

The composer Aaron Copland, Bernstein’s mentor, said of him: “Lenny is the ideal teacher—his enthusiasm is contagious, his knowledge profound, and his love for music boundless.” Below, we list some words of wisdom from Leonard Bernstein, drawn from his lectures, interviews, writings, and public statements.

“To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

“I think that what you’ve got to do is discover the essential truth of the situation, and make a judgment about it.”

“The gift of creativity is that it is a gift to others as well as to oneself.”

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.”

“The best way to know a thing is to be part of it.”

“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”

“Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

“The only way to avoid being unhappy is to close one’s eyes to reality—but that is the coward’s way.”

“Faith is not certainty; it is the courage to live with uncertainty.”

“The only way I have of knowing I’ve done any good is by being told.”

“A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested. A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.”

“Any great work of art … revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world—the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.”

“Life without music is unthinkable. Life without music is academic. That is why my contact with music is a total embrace.”

“This joy of discovery is one of the things that makes music so exciting.”

“The point of all this is that we are living in a time of tremendous change, and the only way to survive is to be open to change.”

“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.”

“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”

“Music … can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”

“Ambiguity is the very essence of an artist.”

“This is the moment of truth for the artist: when he must decide whether to go on or to stop.”

“Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unencumbered with ideas, unburdened by the need to explain itself.”

“In music, everything must be at once clear and mysterious.”

“The only honest art is that which is created out of necessity.”

“Any composer’s writing is autobiographical.”

“Art always mirrors the society in which it is created.”

“Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.”

“The joy and suffering of those who create are the same joy and suffering of those who listen.”

“Music is the one form of communication that can reach everyone, regardless of language or culture.”


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Copyright © 2026 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo 

Truman Capote (September 30th, 1924 – August 25th, 1984) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his novels and plays are literary classics.

He was planning to become a writer at eight years old and began his professional career writing short stories. The critical success of “Miriam” in 1945 attracted the attention of Random House publisher. He achieved widespread acclaim with Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). Capote spent six years writing the latter.

Below we list some words of wisdom by Truman Capote.

“Everybody has to feel superior to somebody,” she said. “But it’s customary to present a little proof before you take the privilege.”

“Life is difficult enough without Meryl Streep movies.”

“It’s a scientific fact that if you stay in California you lose one point of your IQ every year.”

“You can’t blame a writer for what the characters say.”

“Most people don’t find their creativity. There are more unsung geniuses that don’t even know they have great talent.”

“Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.”

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.”

“All human life has its seasons and cycles, and no one’s personal chaos can be permanent. Winter, after all, gives way to spring and summer, though sometimes when branches stay dark and the earth cracks with ice, one thinks they will never come, that spring, and that summer, but they do, and always.”

“I don’t care what anybody says about me as long as it isn’t true.”

“The brain may take advice, but not the heart.”

“Life is a moderately good play with a badly written third act.”

“There is only one unpardonable sin–deliberate cruelty. All else can be forgiven.”

“A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That’s why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.”

“A man who doesn’t dream is like a man who doesn’t sweat. He stores up a lot of poison.”

“If you weren’t here, if you could be anywhere you wanted to be, doing anything you wanted to do, where would you be and what would you be doing?”

“Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.”

“The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.”

“Actually, I think friendship and love are exactly the same thing.”

“Have you never heard what the wise men say: all of the future exists in the past.”

“I remember things the way they should have been.”

“Imagination, of course, can open any door – turn the key and let terror walk right in.”

“He loved her, he loved her, and until he’d loved her she had never minded being alone.”

“You call yourself a free spirit, a “wild thing,” and you’re terrified somebody’s gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you’re already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it’s not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It’s wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

“Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.”

“Past certain ages or certain wisdoms it is very difficult to look with wonder; it is best done when one is a child; after that, and if you are lucky, you will find a bridge of childhood and walk across it.”

“Are the dead as lonesome as the living?”

“Great fury, like great whisky, requires long fermentation.”

“I was terribly sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough.”

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the inner music that words make.”

“It takes a lot of bad writing to get to a little good writing.”

“Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it.”

“There were hints of sunrise on the rim of the sky, yet it was still dark, and the traces of morning color were like goldfish swimming in ink.”

“When I am writing, I try to do it five hours a day but I spend about two of those just fooling around.”

“The better the actor, the more stupid he is.”

“How do I look so young? Quite simple: a complete vegetable diet, 12 hours sleep a night, and lots and lots of make-up.”

Copyright © 2026 Stephen Petullo, Scott Petullo 

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/ 

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Paul Cézanne (January 19, 1839 – October 22, 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of 20th-century abstract art and modern painting. Often called the “father of modern art,” Cézanne bridged Impressionism and Cubism through his innovative use of color, form, and structure. His most famous series include Mont Sainte-Victoire landscapes, still lifes with apples, and portraits of bathers. Largely unrecognized during much of his life, his persistent exploration of perception and geometry profoundly influenced artists such as Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.

Pablo Picasso famously declared, “Cézanne is the father of us all.”

Below, we list some words of wisdom from Cézanne, drawn from his letters, conversations, and recorded statements.

“The truth is in nature, and I shall prove it.”

“Genius is the ability to renew one’s emotions in daily experience.”

“Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of knowledge.”

“Treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere and the cone.”

“Keep good company, read good books, live in the light of the mind.”

“I want to make of impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums.”

“The painter must enclose himself within his work; he must respond not with words, but with paintings.”

“One had to see nature as no one had seen it before.”

“Painting from nature is not copying the object; it is realizing one’s sensations.”

“A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.”

“An optical impression is presented to us as an enigma.”

“Art is a harmony parallel with nature.”

“The artist must see all things as if he were seeing them for the first time.”

“I am more a primitive of my art than a master.”

“The secret of drawing is to correct constantly.”

“I am always making discoveries, either of color or form.”

“The landscape thinks itself in me, I am its consciousness.”

“Painting is damned difficult — you always think you’ve got it, but you haven’t.”

“I paint as if some blind man was looking over my shoulder.”

“The most seductive thing about art is the personality of the artist.”

“One must never let the brush become more important than the painting.”

“The contour eludes me.”

“I owe you the truth in painting, and I will tell it to you.”

“I am the primitive of the way I have taken.”

“One should not say that I have painted apples, but that I have painted red.”

“Painting means thinking with your brush.”

“The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.”

“Optics, that is to say the knowledge of the general effect of light, governs everything.”

“I have sworn to die painting.”

“The most important thing in painting is to find your own walk.”

“When I judge art, I take my painting and put it next to a God-made object like a tree or flower. If it clashes, it is not art.”

“For an Impressionist to paint from nature is not to paint the subject, but to realize sensations.”

“We live in a rainbow of chaos.”

“Right now a moment of time is passing by! Capture its reality in paint!”

“Everything we see falls apart, vanishes. Nature is always the same, but nothing in her that appears to us lasts. Our art must render the thrill of her permanence.”

“Shadow is a colour as light is, but less brilliant; light and shadow are only the relation of two tones.”

“An art which isn’t based on feeling isn’t an art at all.”

“The day is coming when a single carrot, freshly observed, will set off a revolution.”

“There are two things in the painter, the eye and the mind; each of them should aid the other.”

“I am progressing very slowly, for nature reveals herself to me in very complex forms; and the progress needed is incessant.”

“Pure drawing is an abstraction. Drawing and colour are not distinct; everything in nature is coloured.”

“To my mind one does not put oneself in place of the past, one only adds a new link.”

“The awareness of our own strength makes us modest.”

Our FREE Spiritual Detox Script can help you get rid of toxic energy and help you make the most of your life. http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/script/ 

Learn more about spiritual myths, meditation and how to use it to your advantage, and much more with our Direct Your Destiny e-Package: http://spiritualgrowthnow.com/directyourdestiny/ 

Copyright © 2026 Scott Petullo, Stephen Petullo