Intellect is a magnitude of intensity, not a magnitude of extensity.

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.

Happiness, it has been observed, is best achieved by those who have been most unhappy heretofore.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.

My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him.

Better to mock the game than to play and lose.

Anything pursued and attained as a supposed compensation for the lack of self-love is ineffective and can get downright ugly.

Everything is global now. It's not London, it's not Spain, it's not Italy - everything is everywhere. So you have to be everywhere, I guess.

I am writing my second novel for children for Simon and Schuster.

Every time before a collection, I say, "I don't want it to come out. I want to cancel it. It's not good. I haven't achieved anything."

I would like the colors, their shapes and positions to be arrived at in response to and dictated by the condition of the total space at the time they are considered.

Ballet is an incredibly difficult, beautiful art form that takes a lot of training, a lot of time, and a lot of hard work.