Fear is the touch of death, death reminding us of its existence.

I realised the amazing power of literature and of the human imagination generally: to make the dead live and to stop the living from dying.

The world is like an enormous set of scales. When evil begins to outweigh good, angels cram themselves in on the lighter side. You can't see them, but there they are, restoring the balance.

...there is little that comes so close to death as fulfilled love.

If we lose our memory, we lose ourselves. Forgetting is one of the symptoms of death. Without memory we cease to be human beings.

To destroy is easier than to create, and that is why so many people are ready to demonstrate against what they reject. But what would they say if one asked them what they wanted instead?

Justice was revenge wrapping itself in a cloak of high principle.

Man is afraid to attain what he longs for, just as subconsciously he longs for what he is afraid of.

A picture was a motionless record of motion. An arrested representation of life. A picture was the kiss of death pretending to possess immutability.

Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

Animals have one thing that puts them way ahead of people: they don't dissemble, and you don't have to pretend in front of them.

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in my bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.

I want a man who knows something about himself. And is appalled. And has to forgive himself to get along.

We, the human race, are so accustomed to having instead of being. What wastage of the revelations and magic in every moment.

Beautiful gifts sometimes come adorned in ugly wrapping.

Pierre [from Dude, Where's My Car?] could be the best thing I've ever done. When you distill it down to a minute and a half of work, that may be my finest effort.

Do something you fear, NOT to conquer the fear, NOT to accomplish a task, but to familiarize yourself with the processes with which fear protects itself, to demystify it.

A yak is a prehistoric cabbage; of that, we can be sure.

Love is an indescribable sensation - perhaps a conviction, a sense of certitude.

Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.

Be sanctuaries of respect for life, proclaiming the sacredness of every human life from conception to natural death