"as messed up as a soup sandwich." Al LaPointe in a letter to the Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal July 14, 2004

"what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control, but the sense of exercising control in difficult situations. It is not possible to experience a feeling of control unless one is willing to give up the safety of protective routines. Only when a doubtful outcome is at stake, and one is willing to influence that outcome, can a person really know whether she is in control." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Flow

"This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries." Robertson Davies Fifth Business

"Sometimes even in the middle of doing something, we must think in reverse, as when C.S. Lewis suggests the analogy of a math sum gone awry: until you go back to the place where the mistake was made, no further amount of ciphering will help." Robert Moore-Jumonville in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 7 #8 (Issue 57, July-August 2004)

"Eleanor [his wife] and I speak at various conferences; we know so many people who, if they had to do it over again, would never have left their first marriage. The grass always looks greener on the other side. But the grass is greenest where you water it most." Paul Henderson in an interview in Cardus Convivium Vol. I #5 (November-December 2012)

In my latest National Post column I argue for marijuana legalization because free adults should make their own choices... and it is not always wrong to get high including on alcohol, nicotine or pot.

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." Marcus Aurelius

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Dwight Eisenhower, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Social Studies in Globe and Mail July 11 2012