Immortality is a ridiculous illusion, an empty word, a butterfly net chasing the wind.

The Greek word for "return" is nostos. Algos means "suffering." So nostalgia is the suffering caused by an unappeased yearning to return.

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.

There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time. Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.

Those who consider the Devil to be a partisan of Evil and angels to be warriors for Good accept the demagogy of the angels. Things are clearly more complicated.

Dreaming is not merely an act of communication; it is also an aesthetic activity, a game of the imagination, a game that is a value in itself.

Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness. What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being.

The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty.

When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.

In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.

Memory does not make films, it makes photographs.

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.

Because I have ‘chosen’ to see something as impossible, there’s a good chance that it’s not.

Pick the axe

Parents can shape a child, but a great teacher can, too.

Intolerance respecting other people's religion is toleration itself in comparison with intolerance respecting other people's art.

The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.

There is only one belief that can rob death of its sting and the grave of its victory. For without that you cannot be born again.

Prohibiting a visible religious sign, which isn't a manifestation of militancy, would look like a fight against religions.

The most heartbreaking thing of all is how we cheat ourselves of the present moment.

I'm always looking at the computer. I make all of my work on the computer at some point or another. Almost all of the paintings come from a file.