Every genius is a great child; he gazes out at the world as something strange, a spectacle, and therefore with purely objective interest

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Even the worst days have an ending, and the best days have a beginning.

What is truth? Truth doesn't really exist. Who is going to judge whether my experience of an incident is more valid than yours? No one can be trusted to be the judge of that.

PASTIME, n. A device for promoting dejection. Gentle exercise for intellectual debility.

I have the absolute utmost respect for soap opera actors now. They work harder than any actor I know in any other medium. And they don't get very much approbation for it.

that's as nutty as squirrel turds

Puberty hit me very hard, and I basically had no use for school once I discovered the guitar.

You think you know yourself, the world. You believe you've got a bead on everybody else's bullshit, but what about your own?

Literature can train, and exercise, our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours.