If you can talk brilliantly about a problem

Never say no to an idea - you never know how that idea will ignite another idea.

However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes.

The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.

I do not always know what I want, but I do know what I don't want.

You're an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.

A film is - or should be - more like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

Be suspicious of people who have, or crave, power. Never, ever go near power. Don't become friends with anyone who has real power. It's dangerous.

The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.

I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.

Whatever’s eating at you, let it go. Emotion leads to poor decisions. Poor decisions lead to scrutiny. Scrutiny is our greatest threat.

Painting' and 'religious experience' are the same thing. It is a question of the perpetual motion of a right idea.

The secret is to start a story near the ending.

Texas is reportedly going to give college students the right to carry guns on campus. So I guess that next semester, every college student in Texas is getting straight A's.

Spirit itself is not human; it may spring up in any life... it may exist in all animals, and who know in how many undreamt-of beings, or in the midst of what worlds?

I like a man who smells good. Puts on cologne; lotions his body. It keeps me wanting. I like feeling that way.

When novels deal in abstractions, they generally go off the rails.

I realized that I had to be honest about where I was, where I was coming from, and what I was trying to do.

I should be suspicious of what I want.