I mean, if you're asking a fellow to come out of a room so that you can dismember him with a carving knife, it's absurd to tack a 'sir' on to every sentence. The two things don't go together.

Some wear greed as a fine suit of clothes. But you, my son, bear its stamp ever more poorly.

Fame is a thing that happens when you do something you love - nobody wants to be famous for the wrong reasons. It's not my goal, but if being more famous means I can get more music out, that's cool.

Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands.

It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.

My mother implanted in me as a young girl...you can either be an actor in your own life, or a reactor in somebody else's.

He who hesitates is sometimes wise.

The sterner the discipline, the greater the devotion.

I am a house gutted by fire where only the guilty sometimes sleep before the punishment that devours them hounds them out in the open.

My Master used to say, when a pitcher is being filled (by immersion), it gurgles, but when full, it is noiseless.

And your dinner for the orchestra officials." "Haven't you ever had people coming over and no time to shop? You have to make do with what's in the fridge, Clarice. May I call you Clarice?