If alcohol is queen, then tobacco is her consort. It's a fond companion for all occasions, a loyal friend through fair weather and foul.

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed.

The decline of the aperitif may well be one of the most depressing phenomena of our time.

If you were to ask me if I'd ever had the bad luck to miss my daily cocktail, I'd have to say that I doubt it; where certain things are concerned, I plan ahead.

Mystery is the essential element of every work of art.

The Cinema seems to have been invented to express the life of the subconscious, the roots of which penetrate poetry so deeply

I would give my life for a man who is looking for the truth. But I would gladly kill a man who thinks that he has found the truth.

Thank God I'm an atheist.

I can't help feeling that there is no beauty without hope, struggle, and conquest.

Thank God, I am still an atheist.

If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I'd like to spend them, I'd reply 'Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.'

Where you are no is the reflection of your lifelong thoughts and actions.

Every negative effect needs a positive cure (solution)

You maybe able to fool the voters, but not the atmosphere.

If you would be Pope you must think of nothing else.

Having imagination it takes you an hour to write a paragraph that if you were unimaginative would take you only a minute.

I was a great reader of fairy tales. I tried to read the entire fairy tale section of the library.

This detachment (poverty, chastity, etc.) must not be mere amputation; everything which is shaken off must be simultaneously found again at a higher level.

A novel is a mirror which passes over a highway. Sometimes it reflects to your eyes the blue of the skies, at others the churned-up mud of the road.

We want lives of simple, predictable ease-smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see-but God likes to go off-road.

I had to learn to do stuff only for myself, and stop thinking about pleasing some imaginary client or boss. It's a habit that many artists get into that have worked in commercial ventures.