Every genuine poet is necessarily a Columbus. America existed for centuries before Columbus but it was only Columbus who was able to track it down.

We comes from God, I from the Devil.

The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (“A Story About The Most Important Thing”)

The nights were long, like the braids of a pretty girl, and the days were short, like a girl's sense. ("The North")

Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought.

True literature can exist only where it is created, not by diligent and trustworthy functionaries, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, and skeptics.

A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.

Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative.

Literature is painting, architecture, and music.

There is no final one; revolutions are infinite.

We need writers who fear nothing. ("Our Goal")

With enough support you can be as ignorant as you want

A great deal of thought is only a substitute for the thoughts that the individual would really find useful at the time.

I watch 'Batman & Robin' from time to time. It's the worst movie I ever made, so it's a good lesson in humility.

Say not: “When I have free time I shall study”, for you may perhaps never have any free time

It is a great shock at the age of five or six to find that in a world of Gary Coopers you are the Indian.

It may seem like I'm overlooking a technical detail or a spec change, but at the end of the day I'm mostly going to be talking about the final result, with a few exceptions.

My job is to create jobs. In the end I'm going to have jobs to show for it.

I hope I would leave a legacy of joy -a legacy of real compassion.

I was a good student. My mom is a teacher, and her side of the family is all teachers. She put a big emphasis on getting good grades.

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest to children ardent for some desperate glory. The old lie: It is sweet and fitting that you should die for your country.