Every war involves a greater or less relapse into barbarism. War, indeed, in its details, is the essence of inhumanity. It dehumanizes. It may save the state, but it destroys the citizen.

False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.

Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.

Our first and last love is self-love.

The scope of an intellect is not to be measured with a tape-string, or a character deciphered from the shape or length of a nose.

It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.

We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them.

The opinions of the misanthropical rest upon this very partial basis, that they adopt the bad faith of a few as evidence of the worthlessness of all.

The lively and mercurial are as open books, with the leaves turned down at the notable passages. Their souls sit at the windows of their eyes, seeing and to be seen.

Tears are nature's lotion for the eyes. The eyes see better for being washed by them.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.

Rilke wrote: 'These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.

I've always dreamed of growing up to be Amy Poehler.

The reason I never wanted to sign with a big label was because I didn't want no one telling me how to make my music.

The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.

Jon Hamm was the first I thought of for the other role in [Keeping Up with the Joneses], I recently worked with him on Clear History, an HBO improv movie that we had done together.

We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.

I'm a fantasy writer. I don't do SF. This is important to me. If you're not clear on what genre you're in, everything gets muddled, and it's hard to know which rules you're breaking.

I saw men whom thirty years had changed but slightly; but their wives had grown old. These were good women; it is very wearing to be good.

To be a manager requires more than a title, a big office, and other outward symbols of rank. It requires competence and performance of a high order.

I love complex characters - strong females who are vulnerable but have a life and soul. That's what I'm drawn to and what I enjoy most.