Artists are visited by the Muses, or tormented by their own passions and demons.

After a few years of meditation practice we can even learn how to occasionally ignore ourselves. And what relief that can be!

A belief in reincarnation would at least give us some slack; we would have many lifetimes to get it right.

Empires rise and fall like the abdomen of God. It's just the universe breathing.

Poetry is the special medium of spiritual crazy wisdom, the form of expression that comes closest to creating a bridge between words and what is wordless.

Artists speak to a different part of us, bypassing the cloudy filter of reason and the fears and prejudices of the habitual mind.

If you don't like the news go out and make some of your own.

By translating their inner turmoil or understanding into art, artists challenge the accepted notions of reality and create new ones.

Only in cartoons and fairy tales and greeting cards do endings have glitter

For in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be.

Trying to understand is like straining through muddy water. Have the patience to wait! Be still and allow the mud to settle.

We will all, someday, experience death, and become obsolete as a dead leaf falling from a tree, crushed by passersby to ashes underlying the earth.

What is really important you can't understand with your mind.

The expectation of happiness creates a lot of unhappiness.

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark our coming, and look brighter when we come.

The only way people will have the trust to give their all to their job is if they feel like their contribution is recognized and valued.

I always like [while filming] to have a sense of what led this person to this point.