Fiction is not photography, it's oil painting.

Extraordinary people survive under the most terrible circumstances and they become more extraordinary because of it.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

I cannot imagine any boy of spirit who would not be delighted to play a drunkard even to vomiting in front of his Sunday school. Indeed, the vomiting might be the chief attraction of the role.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.

Art is wine and experience is the brandy we distill from it.

Conversation in its true meaning isn't all wagging the tongue; sometimes it is a deeply shared silence.

The dog is a yes-animal. Very popular with people who can't afford a yes man.

All rising to a great place is by a winding stair.

I've been in plenty of situations where someone I'm dating had more time for a console than me.

Ive done a lot of shows that didnt do well. You have to go in with a 50-50 take on it. If it goes well, fantastic. Hope for the best and plan for the worst.

At the highest level the first two yards are in your head.

Real liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full.

While we won't be able to help the 10,000 people who died in last year's [Ebola] outbreak, we can do something to save untold numbers of lives in the future if NIH is working at full strength.

When you seek truth, you seek God whether you know it or not.

Perpetual peace is a futile dream.

The Child, the Lord Jesus Christ . . . Word in our flesh, Wisdom in infancy, Power in weakness, and in true Man, the Lord of Majesty.

What does the vice president do?