A Jewish man with parents alive is a 15-year-old boy and will remain a 15-year-old boy until they die.

The road to hell is paved with works-in-progress.

I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists.

He had learned the worst lesson that life can teach - that it makes no sense.

You can no more make someone tell the truth than you can force someone to love you.

Old age isn't a battle; old age is a massacre.

The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.

Everybody else is working to change, persuade, tempt and control them. The best readers come to fiction to be free of all that noise.

I have a slogan I use when I get anxious writing, which happens quite a bit: ‘the ordeal is part of the commitment.’ It’s one of my mantras. It makes a lot of things doable.

When the whole world doesn't believe in God, it'll be a great place.

Because that is when you love somebody - when you see them being game in the face of the worst. Not courageous. Not heroic. Just game.

Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate and she is fate.

What are we fighting for? Don't ask me I don't give a damn.

If you stay consistent to the sport you will eventually get good, but you have to just want it more to be the best.

I want to be 82 and doing movies with Paolo Sorrentino where people are like, "This is gold."

Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.

I had this attitude that it was going to take time for my work to grow. I had to develop skills to do what I wanted and I didn't really expect it was going to happen rapidly.

I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.

A slave- holder, who has decided to abolish slavery, does not consult his slaves whether they desire freedom or not.

The bit I love is I really love acting, really, and the circus of being a celebrity is something I'm sort of not interested in. I find it strange.