In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus (French pronunciation: [albɛʁ kamy]) (7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French author, philosopher, and journalist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957. He is often cited as a proponent of existentialism (the philosophy that he was associated with during his own lifetime), but Camus himself refused this particular label. Specifically, his views contributed to the rise of the more current philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay The Rebel that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.

In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which (according to the book Albert Camus, une vie by Olivier Todd) was a group opposed to some tendencies of the surrealistic movement of André Breton. Camus was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (after Rudyard Kipling) when he became the first Africa-born writer to receive the award, in 1957. He is also the shortest-lived of any literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.

In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: “No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked…”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Camus

Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

British Historian C. Northcote Parkinson

Cyril Northcote Parkinson (July 30, 1909 – March 9, 1993) was a British historian and author of some sixty books. Besides his numerous works on British politics and economics, he also wrote historical fiction, often based on the Napoleonic period, and sea stories. He is most famous for his ridicule of bureaucratic institutions, notably his Parkinson’s Law and Other Studies, a collection of short essays explaining the inevitability of bureaucratic expansion. As early as the 1930’s, for example, Parkinson had successfully predicted that the Royal Navy would eventually have more admirals than ships.

Parkinson’s first fictional effort, a “biography” of fictional sea captain Horatio Hornblower, met with considerable acclaim and led to his series of books about seafaring adventurer Richard Delancey.

http://www.answers.com/topic/c-northcote-parkinson

Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it’s Christmas.

Dale Evans

Dale Evans was the stage name of Lucille Wood Smith (October 31, 1912 – February 7, 2001), a writer, movie star, and singer-songwriter. She was the second wife of singing cowboy Roy Rogers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Evans

Remember, if Christmas isn’t found in your heart, you won’t find it under a tree.

Charlotte Carpenter

Art is either plagiarism or revolution.

Paul Gauguin

Manao tupapau – The Spirit of the Dead Keep Watch 1892

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading Post-Impressionist painter. His bold experimentation with colouring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential exponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Gauguin

Let us consider that we are all insane. It will explain us to each other; it will unriddle many riddles.

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist. Twain is most noted for his novels Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has since been called the Great American Novel, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. He is extensively quoted. During his lifetime, Twain became a friend to presidents, artists, industrialists, and European royalty.

Twain enjoyed immense public popularity. His keen wit and incisive satire earned him praise from both critics and peers. William Faulkner called Twain “the father of American literature”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain

Let me ask you something, what is not art?

Author Unknown

A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses. It is an idea that possesses the mind.

Robert Oxton Bolton

Robert Oxton Bolt, the famous playwright, author and screenwriter, was born in 1924 at 13 Northenden Road, Sale, and lived there, above his father’s furnisher’s shop until around 1928, when the family moved to live at 68 School Road. A commemorative plaque was placed on these premises in June 2000.

An English dramatist and screenwriter. He wrote several historical plays, including “A Man for All Seasons” in 1960, widely considered to be his most important play, which was made into a film in 1966.

He also did many screenplays including for David Lean’s film of “Lawrence of Arabia” in 1962, and “Dr Zhivago” in 1965, both of which won Academy Awards. In 1970 he wrote the screenplay for “Ryan’s Daughter “, and for “Lady Caroline Lamb” in 1972, which starred his wife, Sarah Miles, in the title role – he also directed this film.

Later, in 1984 he wrote screenplays for the remake of “The Bounty” which starred Mel Gibson, and in 1986, “The Mission” starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons.
Bolt demonstrated outstanding skill in the dramatisation of political and moral issues, and was an expert in the use of dramatic structure, strong characterisation, and expressive dialogue.

This was demonstrated further in “Vivat Vivat Regina” in 1970, which well illustrated his ability to bring history to life.

His “Revolution” in 1977, though not a popular success, showed his ability to tackle intellectually ambitious topics and to deal with them authoritatively.

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.manchester2002-uk.com/celebs/robert-bolt.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.manchester2002-uk.com/celebs/authors3.html&usg=__YROjlOZIPa_-6iywNsEYR95Nido=&h=116&w=90&sz=4&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=3AbvwHmoZvktlM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=68&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRobert%2BOxton%2BBolton%2Bauthor%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGLL_enUS358US358%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that escape those who dream only at night.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.

He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother died shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but they never formally adopted him. He attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money. After enlisting in the Army and later failing as an officer’s cadet at West Point, Poe parted ways with the Allans. Poe’s publishing career began humbly, with an anonymous collection of poems, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827), credited only to “a Bostonian”.

Poe switched his focus to prose and spent the next several years working for literary journals and periodicals, becoming known for his own style of literary criticism. His work forced him to move between several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he married Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. In January 1845, Poe published his poem “The Raven” to instant success. His wife died of tuberculosis two years later. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn (later renamed The Stylus), though he died before it could be produced. On October 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.

Poe and his works influenced literature in the United States and around the world, as well as in specialized fields, such as cosmology and cryptography. Poe and his work appear throughout popular culture in literature, music, films, and television. A number of his homes are dedicated museums today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Allan_Poe

To see far is one thing, going there is another.

Constantin Brancusi

The Table of Silence 1930s

Constantin Brâncuşi (Romanian pronunciation: [konstanˈtin brɨnˈkuʃʲ]; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was an internationally renowned Romanian sculptor whose works, which blend simplicity and sophistication, led the way for numerous modernist sculptors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Br%C3%A2ncu%C5%9Fi