I can only say that one's individual situation is more real and important to oneself than the devastations of fates and empires especially when they do not vitally affect oneself

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness covered up, but saturate myself with the strange and extraordinary new conditions of this life, and it will all refine itself into poetry later on.

Poetical appreciation is only newly bursting on me.

I wanted to write a battle song for the Judeans but so far I can think of nothing noble and weighty enough

Nobody ever told me what to read, or ever put poetry in my way

The darkness crumbles away It is the same old druid Time as ever.

I never joined the army for patriotic reasons.

Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last.

I cant look at things in the simple, large way that great poets do.

You mustnt forget the circumstances I have been brought up in, the little education I have had.

I have to say, 'Gravity' is better in 3-D, even though in 2-D the quality of the picture is better. But the 3-D is better.

I am an enemy of the State. But isn't everyone?

A clever man reaps some benefit from the worst catastrophe, and a fool can turn even good luck to his disadvantage.

The notion of a defense that will protect American cities is one that will not be achieved, but it is that goal that supplies the political magic, as it were, in the president's vision.

Riches cannot rescue from the grave, which claims alike the monarch and the slave.

Like a cyclone, imperialism spins across the globe; militarism crushes peoples and sucks their blood like a vampire.

Will you still love me when I'm no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I've got nothing but my aching soul?

Be an enzyme - a catalyst for change. As a slogan, I don't know if that's ever going to be right up there with Ich Bin Ein Berliner, or “I Have A Dream,” but there's a lot of truth to it.

Some people attach snowboards to their feet, very few attach them to their souls.

I made 'Empire of the Sun' in Shanghai in the 1980s and want to come back one day to make a movie in China.