If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man's property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behaviour that is often considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business.

I am never without my lyric book. If anything inspirational happens, I have it there so nothing's forgotten.

Where does my fist go when I open up my hand? Where does my lap go when I stand up?

I love to write the weird and creepy stuff!

When I came into boxing, when it was more out of control, no fighters got an opportunity to fight. I came in: everybody got an opportunity to make a living in America.

... love dreads being isolated, being left to speak in a void -- at the beginning it would often rather listen than speak.

Oh the piercing sadness of life in the midst of its ordinariness!

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.

The rules are simple: the first one to lose dies.

I love science fiction. I read a lot of science fiction.