Art, in other words, betrays a sexy mental fitness.

Never underestimate spite as a motivator for genius.

If anything runs deeper than a mathematician’s love of variables, it’s a scientist’s love of constants.

Iron is the final peal of a star’s natural life.

Mendeleev, unlike the squeamish Meyer, had balls enough to predict that new elements would be dug up. Look harder, you chemists and geologists, he seemed to taunt, and you’ll find them.

Germans at the time believed, a little oddly, that dyes killed germs by turning the germs’ vital organs the wrong color.

The one who doesn't, at the time of bliss as well as crisis, abandon his own, is the one worthy to be addressed as a human.

But in the next world I shan't be doing music, with all the striving and disappointments. I shall be being it.

Your life is the sum total of all your choices up to this present minute.

Of all the faculties of the mind, memory is the first that flourishes, and the first that dies.

Never believe that true prayer consists in mere babbling, reciting so many psalms and vigils, saying your beads while you allow your thoughts to roam.

I enjoyed recording at home. I had the luxury of being able to re-record things.

When I do my own makeup, I keep things pretty simple.

To have known how to change the past into a few saddened smiles-is this not to master the future?

I half-punched a paparazzo once. I've hit a few people.

The Bible is shallow enough for a new believer to wade in, but deep enough for a theologian to drown in.