In fact I'm in too much of a mental muddle to know where I am - an idealist or not. I'm a mere man of letters, and I do what I can with those subjects.

So plant your own gardens and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.

Don't talk unless you can improve the silence.

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.

I cannot sleep unless I am surrounded by books.

The worst labyrinth is not that intricate form that can entrap us forever, but a single and precise straight line

The fact is that poetry is not the books in the library . . . Poetry is the encounter of the reader with the book, the discovery of the book.

Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.

I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart, I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

You control whether you are happy. It's all your narrative and you can change it if you choose to." - L. R. W. Lee Andy Smithson: Blast of the Dragon's Fury

Shakespeare, he's in the alley with his pointed shoes and his bells, speaking to some French girl who says she knows me well.

False dichotomies are often at the heart of discord.

The weak against the strong, Is always in the wrong.

The inability to listen and to depict in the countenance what others have said has spoiled many a good actress.

Americans love winners, so if we win we know we'll get a lot of support.

Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

When I think of Tokyo Story, yeah, it is like a novella. That doesn't mean it's not great. Some of my favorite Tolstoy works are his novellas.

The minute a man is convinced he is interesting, he isn't.

Maybe it's time we got back to the basics of love.