I like old people, just as I like old trees: in their shadow there is freshness and peace, one admires them, and around them everything is so calm.

Moscow seethes and bubbles and gasps for air. It's always thirsting for something new, the newest events, the latest sensation. Everyone wants to be the first to know. It's the rhythm of life today.

The one good thing about not seeing you is that I can write you letters.

When you have once gained sight, it is impossible to feign blindness.

As a result of half a century of Soviet rule people have been weaned from a belief in human kindness.

It became clear to the whole world that a totalitarian regime could neither accuse nor transform itself: suicide was not in its nature, it could only kill others.

History is a stern judge.

It is human nature that rules the world, not governments and regimes.

Go to meet destiny halfway and destiny will come to your assistance.

God grants an easy death only to the just.

all large cities are alike at night.

Random acts of kindness show that even amidst the hustle and bustle, Paris inhabitants are more welcoming that their reputation gives them credit for.

Harry, my wand!

I always have an idea before we even start the movie because if you hire the wrong person, within a couple of days you're going to know that and you're going to be really panicked.

Computers are the central access; information processing based on a spiral network, similar to that which is the chaos of existence itself, the analysis of systems, the interlocking lokas.

We'd make love. Afterwards he would take photographs of me. (On modeling for Alfred Stieglitz)

The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.

My son, who sees me almost every day of his life, will look at me and go, "I know that dude! I like that dude!" It's incredibly affirming.

I will go only so far as to say that I knew what an atom was.

I meddled in things that man must leave alone

For me, music comes naturally. I always just get in the studio and I feel like, wow, this is my heaven.