Everybody's friend is nobody's.

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.

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on.

O it's a snug little island! A right little tight little island!

A monk's extraordinary patience can be a hindrance to desperate decision-making.

A madhouse of frenzied moneymaking and frenzied pleasure-seeking, with none of the corners chipped off. It is beautifully situatedand the air reminds one curiously of Edinburgh.

My parents never talked to me like I was a kid. Maybe that's why I've been seen as mature.

Some people say, the world can be so alive! It always is, you just do not know it because of the screen of your thinking. You notice it as you become more awake.

I don't care what people think of me now, so why would I care when I'm dead?

People see me on TV two and three times a day, and see me cooking all these wonderfully Southern, fattening dishes. That's only 30 days out of 365. And it's for entertainment.

Flowers often grow more beautifully on dung-hills than in gardens that look beautifully kept.

Other than conversation, no other art form can give the satisfaction of spontaneous interaction like Jazz.