Buying art is not understanding art.

I am interested in reconstructing symbols. It's about connecting with an older knowledge and trying to discover continuities in why we search for heaven.

Ruins, for me, are the beginning. With the debris, you can construct new ideas. They are symbols of a beginning.

Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.

As a child I had no toys; our house was bombed, but there were lots of bricks. Ruins are wonderful because they are the beginning of something new, you can do something with them.

But I believe above all that I wanted to build the palace of my memory, because my memory is my only homeland.

I believe art has to take responsibility but it should not give up being art.

History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images.

I believe in empty spaces; they're the most wonderful thing.

History is formed by the people, those who have power and those without power. Each one of us makes history.

If I do something that depresses, it's not because I'm depressed, but because political life and history is depressing.

Grieving the loss of a loved one—whether human or animal—is not only permissible, it is essential.

I have always loved the desert. One sits down on a desert sand dune, sees nothing, hears nothing. Yet through the silence something throbs, and gleams.

Our passions are not too strong, they are too weak. We are far too easily pleased.

True solitude is a din of birdsong, seething leaves, whirling colors, or a clamor of tracks in the snow.

Every breath is a resurrection.

There is no greater violence than to deny the dreams of our children.

The script just can't commit the sin of being boring.

I always did hate for anyone to know what my plans or hopes or prospects were—for, if I kept people in ignorance in these matters, no one could be disappointed but myself, if they were not realized.

Everybody doesn't have to get every joke. People really appreciate not being condescended to.

The Force of Art lies in its immediate influence on human psychology and in its active contagiousness.