Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

Retirement requires the invention of a new hedonism, not a return to the hedonism of youth

The sewing machine joins what the scissors have cut asunder, plus whatever else comes in its path.

Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story.

The laughter of the aphorism is sometimes triumphant, but seldom carefree.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

Every day begins with an act of courage and hope: getting out of bed.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Bring up the past only if it will help to build the future, otherwise its best to be left to sleep

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

The ego exists as a powerful force in Western man that cannot be dismissed or denied. The therapeutic goal is to integrate the ego with the body and its striving for pleasure and sexual fulfilment.

Religion is a self-conferred intellectual decision; it's not something you get at birth and is unchangeable. You're collusive with the religion when you accept it; you have a choice.

I feel lucky. I think acting can help to keep you young. It does make you feel there's meaning in your life.

The first axiom of the family vacation is that someone, possibly everyone, will get sick.

When you see beauty anywhere, it's a reflection of yourself.

We teach reading, writing and math by [having students do] them. But we teach democracy by lecture.

How shall the heart be reconciled / To its feast of losses?

Prose is not necessarily good because it obeys the rules of syntax, but it is fairly certain to be bad if it ignores them.