Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.

It is not enough to stare up the steps, we must step up the stairs.

Follow the man who seeks the truth; run from the man who has found it.

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it.

Nothing is more powerful than individuals acting out of their own conscience.

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.

Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy will function properly.

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

This is a confusing and uncertain period, when a thousand wise words can go completely unnoticed, and one thoughtless word can provoke an utterly nonsensical furor.

We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the seemingly impossible to become a reality.

There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.

Every writer hopes his or her book will be its own thing.

If men must die, why not in honorable pursuit of knowledge? Far be it that our ideas of manhood should be dwarfed to the size of a golden dollar.

I'll never forget the first screening at the Berlin Film Festival. As soon as the film ended there was an outbreak of booing, which made us look at each other with some surprise.

The sages of old live again in us, and in opinions there is a metempsychosis.

It was not power that corrupted people, but fools who corrupted power.

We can be exposed to HIV many times without being chronically infected. Our immune system will get rid of the virus within a few weeks, if you have a good immune system.

I'm strictly a movie person. I mean, I watch the HBO documentaries and Netflix.

In his brief 21 years on this earth, Michael Smith Jr. touched countless lives.

As you continue writing and rewriting, you begin to see possibilities you hadn't seen before. Writing a poem is always a process of discovery.

It is while we are young that the habit of industry is formed. If not then, it never is afterwards. The fortune of our lives therefore depends on employing well the short period of our youth.