From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow and weep to see them melt.

For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.

It is wonderful what strength of purpose and boldness and energy of will are roused by the assurance that we are doing our duty.

To all, to each, a fair good-night, and pleasing dreams, and slumbers light.

The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it.

O woman! in our hours of ease Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou!

Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.

Success or failure in business is caused more by the mental attitude even than by mental capacities.

If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like an aged man reclining under the shadow of an oak which he has planted.

Look back, and smile on perils past.

And all we feared inside the night / shows true in morning's biased light.

I don't believe in gutter politics. I don't believe in gutter journalism.

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

You shouldn't say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you're perfectly safe.

To want to become the President is, I think, such a bizarre ambition that it is automatically deranging.

The social contract is starting to unravel in many countries.

How anyone can remain a Catholic - I mean who has ever been aroused to think, and is not biased by the partialities of childish years - after seeing Catholicism here in Italy I cannot conceive.

An actor is an expert at being someone else. A speaker is an expert at being themselves.

What is the best use of my time on this planet?

I love playing characters, so I'm always telling my agents, 'Don't worry if the character description is something you think I'm not. Let me try to be that person.