I do not so easily think in words.... after being hard at work having arrived at results that are perfectly clear... I have to translate my thoughts in a language that does not run evenly with them.

What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly. As it lies within his power, so it becomes his duty to work in that direction.

Eugenics is the study of the agencies under social control that may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations either physically or mentally.

The cat is the only non-gregarious domestic animal. It is retained by its extra-ordinary adhesion to the comforts of the house in which it is reared.

The aim of eugenics is to represent each class or sect by its best specimens; that done, to leave them to work out their common civilization in their own way.

One of the effects of civilization is to diminish the rigour of the application of the law of natural selection. It preserves weakly lives that would have perished in barbarous lands.

[Statistics are] the only tools by which an opening can be cut through the formidable thicket of difficulties that bars the path of those who pursue the Science of Man.

Whenever you can, count.

All male animals, including men, when they are in love, are apt to behave in ways that seem ludicrous to bystanders.

The object . . . is to discover methods of condensing information concerning large groups of allied facts into brief and compendious expressions suitable for discussion.

Characteristics cling to families.

The element of fire to me is very powerful because of what it symbolizes, how it symbolizes a strength. It symbolizes something that's unstoppable. You can't get through it, you know.

Luckily I haven't fallen into the trap, which has claimed so many writers, of living from day to day thinking 'Ah, I'll write a book about that.'

Rochester: I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me.

I asked, "What are words?" The tenzo said, "One, two, three, four, five." I asked again, "What is practice?" "Nothing in the entire universe is hidden."

In romance, as in life, you only learn when you're losing.

The music becomes something that is its own entity.

Many men and women spend their lives in unsuccessful attempts to spin the flax God sends them upon a wheel they can never use.

It's got to be better than rooming with Joe Page.

I would say that the emotional content of the film [Swiss Army Man] took me by surprise, and sometimes I would probably want to capture the unique tone of it.

I want to change the color of Starbucks from green to red. Whose job was it to say, This is going to be green? I want that to be my job.