Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

When we will learn to see, not you and me, but only we, then there will be peace in this world.

Ignorance is a fools castle.

Witchcraft involves being willing to understand and embrace your true self. It is about exploring your light and learning to celebrate your darkness.

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation.

The essence of true friendship is to make allowance for another's little lapses.

And by another year, Such as God knows, with freer air, More fruits and fairer flowers Will bear, While I droop here.

...the lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man's mind ain't knowing the man.

When I record music I like to be in one place and kind of have a base to keep going back to.

We feel something like respect for consistency even in error. We lament the virtue that is debauched into a vice; but the vice that affects a virtue becomes the more detestable.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.