Flippancy, the most hopeless form of intellectual vice.

Time is money says the proverb, but turn it around and you get a precious truth. Money is time.

For the man sound of body and serene of mind there is no such thing as bad weather; every day has its beauty, and storms which whip the blood do but make it pulse more vigorously.

That is one of the bitter curses of poverty; it leaves no right to be generous.

For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent.

I hate with a bitter hatred the names of lentils haricots - those pretentious cheats of the appetite, those tabulated humbugs, those certified aridites calling themselves human food!

The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm.

Life is a huge farce, and the advantage of possessing a sense of humour is that it enables one to defy fate with mocking laughter.

I know every book of mine by its smell, and I have but to put my nose between the pages to be reminded of all sorts of things.

Money is made at Christmas out of holly and mistletoe, but who save the vendors would greatly care if no green branch were procurable?

Parks are but pavement disguised with a growth of grass.

Peace may be hard to achieve, but is possible with small yet essential steps that are guided by courage and sufficient commitment.

There's something to be said in favor of working in isolation in the real world.

Democracy is never a thing done. Democracy is always something that a nation must be doing.

I started making 8mm films when I was 13, so I've been directing for 21 years.

Why, do you not know, then, that the origin of all human evils, and of baseness, and cowardice, is not death, but rather the fear of death?

The universe in some sense must have known that we were coming.

I didn't go to high school, so I don't have a high school experience. I was home-schooled during high school.

The camera is the eye of history.

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.

When I first started really playing, in '98, I was super excited to see all the people I grew up watching. ... I loved Monica Seles, Steffi Graf, and Pete Sampras.