If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be as overpopulated as it is now.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

In Rome you long for the country. In the country you praise to the skies the distant town.

The greatest all-around American film actor is James Stewart.

Only small minds want always to be right.

If the people have no bread, let them eat cake.

I am furious at all the letters to answer, when all I want to do is think and write poems. ... I long for open time, with no obligations except toward the inner world and what is going on there.

True art lies in a reality that is felt.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

I feel as proud to be Jewish as I feel to be black

I love finding things that scare me and doing them. That's how you grow.