Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good.

When painting the faces of young persons ... use the yolk of the egg of a city hen, because they have lighter yolks than those of country hens.

When you have practiced drawing for a while... take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best works that you can find done by the hand of great masters.

If you imitate the forms of a single artist through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from them.

If thou shouldst paint mountains in a good style and to look natural, take some large stones full of cracks and copy them.

Take note that, before going any farther, I will give you the exact proportion of a man. Those of a woman I will disregard, for she does not have any set proportion.

Mystery is the art of eliciting unseen things hidden in the shadow of natural ones... and serving to demonstrate as real the things that are not.

If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it.

Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.

You can never achieve greatness until you can leave bitterness behind.

Appreciate the things and people in your life while remaining independent of them. Give thanks for them, but realize that they do not complete you. Only you can complete you.

You don't try and put rockets under prime ministers.

In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad.

What the people out there are calling for is honesty which has been missing for quite some time now. We are tired of all the deceit and incompetence of this government.

Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end...

Sitting opposite Steven Spielberg, while he turns the pages of your script and talks about each scene as he goes, is about the best film school you can get.

If you're not falling, you're not training hard enough.

In Russia there are special people who are permitted to do anything. They are the sacrificial priests of power. Anyone who is not a member of this group has no clout with the state.