Stacy Schiff: "Fiercely but compassionately, she..."

“Fiercely but compassionately, she plucked order from chaos.” 

—Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life

Stacy Schiff: "If one prefers not..."

“If one prefers not to be perceived as a king, one is ill advised, for starters, to spend one’s time consorting with a queen.”

—Stacy Schiff, Cleopatra: A Life

Mary Carole McCauley: "Art isn't meant to..."

"Art isn't meant to be protected like a hothouse flower from the withering blasts of real life. Theater isn't created in spite of the rude, bruising outside world — it springs from it. It is the source of the art form's vitality, its ferocity and its relevance."

- Mary Carole McCauley, The Baltimore Sun, May 1, 2010

Kwame Kwei-Armah: "Our job as artists..."

“Our job as artists is to treat the world that we’ve come into with integrity. Otherwise, we’re bastardizing other cultures so that we can be looked upon as access for others who may be more economically empowered. There’s no honor in that. But there is honor in explaining a way of life, or explaining a dysfunction, or explaining a morality, or exposing or helping enter into a world that makes you understand human nature in a way that you may never have before.”

-Kwame Kwei-Armah, the new Artistic Director at Baltimore's CenterStage, from an interview on www.dctheatrescene.com, The Creative Source on Heading CenterStage

Deborah Reed: "...and he wonders if..."

"...and he wonders if loving a woman, even one who breaks your heart, has a way of keeping a man going for another day."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p271)

Deborah Reed: "For the first time..."

"For the first time in her life she felt the scope of what she knew and loved about music, and it began to feel limitless."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p224)

Deborah Reed: "People don't always have..."

"People don't always have good sense."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p208)

Deborah Reed: "A mind can think..."

"A mind can think a lot of things in the short time it takes to open a mouth."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p72)

Deborah Reed: "He finds her most..."

"He finds her most beautiful in the morning. Maybe it's just seeing her for the first time of the day."

—Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me (p18)

Robert Redford: "Storytellers broaden our minds..."

“Storytellers broaden our minds: engage, provoke, inspire, and ultimately, connect us.”

—Robert Redford, President and Founder of Sundance Institute

Aaron Sorkin: "...they ran into the..."

"...they ran into the fire to help get people out... ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless."

—Aaron Sorkin, Martin Sheen as President Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing

Dalai Lama: "Today, as we mark..."

"Today, as we mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11th 2001 attacks on New York and Washington DC, let us remember all the innocent lives lost and ponder the continuing impact of that tragic day. September 11th reminds us of the horror we human beings can unleash on ourselves when we allow our human intelligence and powerful technology to be overtaken by hatred.

"We need to learn from our painful memories of September 11th and become more aware of the destructive consequences that arise when we give in to feelings of hatred. This tragedy in particular has reinforced my belief that fostering a spirit of peaceful co-existence and mutual understanding among the world’s peoples and faith traditions is an urgent matter of importance to us all. We must therefore make every effort to ensure that our various faith traditions contribute to build a more caring, peaceful world."

—The Dalai Lama, September 9, 2011
Originally published in the Washington Post on September 10, 2011