"Do not fear death so much but rather the inadequate life."

Bertolt Brecht
(10 Feb. 1898 - 14 Aug. 1956), German poet, playwright, and theatre director.

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."

Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel (2 March 1904 – 24 Sept. 1991), writer and cartoonist.

"It’s so exacting writing a book. It’s just paper, ink and your thoughts and your sentences have to be exactly right. There’s nothing to hide behind; there’s no mix to cushion things."

Mark Oliver Everett
(10 April 1963), leader of the American rock band the Eels AKA E.

"We reduce ourselves at a certain point in our lives to kind of solely pursuing things that we already know how to do. And I think that's rather unfortunate. It's so much more interesting and usually illuminating to put yourself in a situation where you don't know what's going to happen..."

Brandon Bruce Lee (1 Feb. 1965 – 31 March 1993), American actor.

"The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you."

David Foster Wallace
(21 Feb. 1962 – 12 Sept. 2008), American author of novels, essays, and short stories.

"I can't imagine why we all don't want desperately to take care of each other."

Drew Blyth Barrymore
(born 22 February 1975), American actress and film producer.

"There’s a tendency, because the Beethoven (Violin Concerto) is played so often, to try to milk every moment and enforce music onto it. It becomes like an actor overacting a part... I tend to like to err on the side of letting the beauty come out, rather than inflicting an interpretation upon it."

Joshua Bell (born 9 Dec. 1967), American Grammy Award-winning violinist.

"I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit."

Miriam Makeba (4 March 1932 - 9 Nov. 2008), South African singer, AKA Mama Afrika.

"When you become part of something, in some way you count. It could be a march; it could be a rally, even a brief one. You're part of something, and you suddenly realize you count. To count is very important."

Louis "Studs" Terkel (16 May 1912 – 31 October 2008), Author, historian, actor, and broadcaster.

"I'm a flamboyant type of guy, a cooler version of Liberace."

Usher Raymond IV (born October 14, 1978),
American R&B and pop singer-songwriter and actor.

"It's only words... unless they're true."

David Mamet
(30 Nov. 1947), American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter and film director.

"Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels."

Nikos Kazantzakis
(18 Feb. 1883 - 26 Oct 1957), Greek writer and philosopher.

"Expiring for love is beautiful but stupid."

Jenny Holzer
(born 1950 in Gallipolis, Ohio), American conceptual artist.

"I picture my epitaph: "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown."

Paul Leonard Newman (26 Jan. 1925 – 26 Sept. 2008), American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian and auto racing enthusiast.

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."

Lily Tomlin
(1 September 1939), American actress, comedian, writer and producer.

"Western culture is into making everyone's feelings black and white. If you're sad, that's negative, automatically. Well, sadness has many parts to it. It can be very gratifying. I'm not saying I sit around being sad all the time, but when I am sad, now, I pay attention to it."

Neko Case (8 September 1970), American alt country singer-songwriter.

"I am not a performer but occasionally I deliberately work in a public context. Some sculptures need the movement of people around them to work."

Andy Goldsworthy
(26 July 1956), British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist

"Inside every adult there's still a child that lingers. We're happiness merchants -- giving people the opportunity to dream like children."

Guy Laliberté
(2 Sept. 1959 in Quebec City, Canada), founder/CEO of Cirque du Soleil

"This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing-room."

Virginia Woolf
(25 Jan. 1882 - 28 March 1941), English novelist and essayist.

"Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list."

Denis Leary
(18 August, 1957) American actor, comedian, writer and director.

"I hope they make a video game of me. At least I wouldn't have any cellulite then."

Scarlett Johansson
(22 November 1984), actress and singer, of dual American and Danish citizenship.

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."

Thomas Eugene Robbins
(22 July 1936), American author.

"The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie."

Agnes de Mille
(18 September 1905 – 7 October 1993), an American dancer and choreographer.

"Through music I either tame my demons or unleash them and allow them to be what they are. I don't want the music to be about provocation, I want the music to bring you to a place where you feel at home."

Michael Franti
(21 April 1966) is an American poet, musician, and composer of multi-ethnic music.

"I was interested in how we engage the world. How do we use our skin as our eyes? If you read a cityscape or a landscape with just your mind, and not your body, it becomes like a picture or representation, not something you really engage with."

Olafur Eliasson (born 1967 in Copenhagen, Denmark), Danish-Icelandic artist.

"For some reason my voice is more chesty and boomy in the morning. It’s a mix of grogginess and caffeine-inspired confidence, before I remember how to be neurotic."

Andrew Bird (11 July 1973), American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist.

"Once I was beset by anxiety but I pushed the fear away by studying the sky, determining when the moon would come out and where the sun would appear in the morning."

Louise Bourgeois (25 Dec 1911), Paris-born American sculptor, painter and printmaker.

"I don't believe there's a single American sitting around saying, 'I'd like to see Bob Costas' take on this.'"

Bob Costas (22 March 1952), American sportscaster.

"For me nature is not landscape, but the dynamism of visual forces.. an event rather than an appearance. These forces can only be tackled by treating color and form as ultimate identities, freeing them from all descriptive or functional roles."

Bridget Riley (24 April 1931), British Op-art painter.