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

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

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

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.

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.

Her smile is the simplest miracle that she can create anytime.

Bravery comes along as a gradual accumulation of discipline

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in reading a good novel, must be incredibly stupid

I'm not a plastic surgeon, and I cannot change the DNA of a person, but when I see a woman try on my clothes and she feels beautiful, I know I am doing my job.

We do not have a fear of the unknown. What we fear is giving up the known.

Every picture that is successful has one little miracle in it.

I have always come to life after coming to books.

The problem is, there are definitely some genuinely lame things on television, and there's more at the bottom of the barrel, because the barrel in a sense has gotten bigger.

I get that the media wants us to play theater critics and critique every other proposal. What I'm focusing on are my own policy proposals.

Man was not made to travel faster than a baseball