I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone.

A man is the sum of his misfortunes. One day you'd think misfortune would get tired but then time is your misfortune

Women do have an affinity for evil, for believing that no woman is to be trusted, but that some men are too innocent to protect themselves.

It's always the idle habits you acquire which you will regret. Father said that. That Christ was not crucified: he was worn away by a minute clicking of little wheels. That had no sister.

Caddy got the box and set it on the floor and opened it. It was full of stars. When I was still, they were still. When I moved, they glinted and sparkled. I hushed.

If all the businesses in town are run like country businesses, You are going to have a country town

Some days in late August at home are like this, the air thin and eager like this, with something in it sad and nostalgic and familiar...

Amid the pointing and the horror, the clean flame.

It's not when you realise that nothing can help you - religion, pride, anything - it's when you realise that you don't need any aid.

It’s hard to see yourself changing until you’re so far from the person you used to be that it’s hard to remember ever being them at all.

I want to glide in a world of beauty, ’ I said. ‘To be carried away into a world of luxurious things.

Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.

[Rylie:] I was thinking about that short you directed--The Pier. I wondered if you had a video or a reel of it somewhere. [Finn:] You want to see my short. Why?[Rylie:] Color me curious.

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value.

I read, I gossip, I do crosswords. I think chatting with friends is relaxing. I've picked them up all through my life - if you live long enough, you end up with quite a large circle.

If anything, I've probably tended more toward humor in my writing and veered more toward pleasure in my personal life.

When I find myself in times of trouble Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom "Let it be".

When you make a movie, it's a movie, and things change based on who you put in the movie. And so it's, you know, obviously not exactly your life, but I feel that I did learn a lot about my parents.

If there is such a thing as a lock on an Oscar nomination, ... Hoffman has one.