William C. Somerville Quotes
Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.

Quotes to Explore
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I always ask, why can't I be just like Cary Grant or something.
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Understanding that being nervous, having doubts and lacking confidence are emotions that are human is how you deal with it. It is okay to feel that way... and then understanding that you can work through it.
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There's no handbook for parenting. So you walk a very fine line as a parent because you are civilizing these raw things. They will tip the coffee over and finger-paint on the table. At some point, you have to say, 'We're gonna have to clean that up because you don't paint with coffee on a table.'
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Like parents, cooks shouldn't have favourites, but some recipes inevitably shine more than others.
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If I'm gonna write songs about my exes, they can write songs about me. That's how it works.
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Oh my God, Betty White is actually everything that you would expect her to be like.
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I don't think there's any difference in my passion than when I was a young coach. I hope somebody in some way realizes I could be an asset, but we'll just wait and see.
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A culture produces ideas which are being explored, which of interest to that culture at that moment. And I think one of the things a writer can do is to take those ideas and go a bit further with them.
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The oceans produce up to 70 percent of our oxygen, they shape our climate, and they support an American oceans economy larger than our nation's entire agriculture sector.
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As a child, I had a serious illness that lasted for two years or more. I have vague recollections of this illness and of my being carried about a great deal. I was known as the 'sick one.' Whether this illness gave me a twist away from ordinary paths, I don't know; but it is possible.
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I'm just going to have fun. Maybe that will be the most important thing to do.
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When I was born, my parents - my mother especially - couldn't come to terms with that fact that they had another baby girl. I know these stories in detail because every time a guest visited, or there was a gathering, they repeated this story in front of me that how I was the unwanted child.
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I live the way I want to live, and I don't comment on the way that other people live.
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I just love a challenge, and always have, and will do anything to make it interesting. I'll try anything, really, as long as it's a challenge and you can have some fun doing it.
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Al Qaeda has overplayed their hand. What the al Qaeda do when they go into a town or village or a neighborhood inside a major city is they get a stranglehold on the people themselves. They force the men to wear beards and the women to be properly costumed and essentially completely covered up.
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Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you.
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I played, like, a year of piano until I learned the 'Pink Panther' theme. That was my goal. Once I was good enough, I quit. Now my music has to have some rock.
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A minority group has 'arrived' only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.
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You compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down... some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
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I think the high-tech industry is used to developing new things very quickly. It's the Silicon Valley way of doing business: You either move very quickly and you work hard to improve your product technology, or you get destroyed by some other company.
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Children want to do what grownups do.
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What is the evolutionary value of blushing? It seems not to be to our advantage to do it, to involuntarily reveal our inner emotions. If we're trying to manipulate or lie, actions in furtherance of individual goals as opposed to the goals of others, blushing would not seem to be helpful. And yet everyone blushes, except the psychopath.
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This gathered worship, as Quakers call it, is not only absence of noise. Gathered worship springs from the reverent, silent expectation that God will come among the people. The silence deepens as we feel ourselves drawn beautifully to God and each other. Our hearts and souls burst with thanksgiving-a thanksgiving best expressed by silence. Silence growing from awe is the natural human response to hints of the Divine.
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Children became an obsessive theme in Victorian culture at the same time that they were being exploited as never before. As the horrors of life multiplied for some children, the image of childhood was increasingly exalted. Children became the last symbols of purity in a world which was seen as increasingly ugly.