In Europe, being an artist is a form of behavior. In America, it's an excuse for a form of behavior.

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.

To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.

Don't do what you can do - try what you can't do.

There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's fifty; then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

I can easily do without people (there are days when I could easily do without myself), and ... in the country of books where I dwell, the dead can count entirely as much as the living.

I always think that a director who knows about the technical side, but cares about the acting performances and casting as well, is ahead of the game.

Anna Wintour is the most powerful woman in the global fashion industry, the first lady of fashion. She's a politician; I'm a stylist. They are two very different jobs.

Truths turn into dogmas the minute they are disputed.

If somebody ever wished to be me for a day, they'd be the most pissed-off person once they got here. They would be, like, in hell.

I've been asked over the years to compile a list of desert-island discs. I couldn't do that. If I was trapped on a desert island, I don't think I'd want 10 songs to bring with me.

Courage is not a matter of gender.

I just went and saw 'Crazy, Stupid, Love.' Julianne Moore - I've been in love with her since 'Boogie Nights.' But also, 'The Big Lebowski.'

The students realize that it's their life I'm talking about: it's out of balance, they're struggling to put it into balance. How are they going to do it?

He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces.