It is significant that people who refuse to tell their children fairytales do not fear that the children will believe in princes and princesses, but that they will believe in witches and bogeys.

The seeds of civilization are in every culture, but it is city life that brings them to fruition.

Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there. A new idea is a light that illuminates presences which simply had no form before the light fell on them.

The first impression of a work of art is its otherness from reality.

The Past, being in the mode of memory, is closed, inalienable, and irreparable.

Fire is a natural symbol of life and passion, though it is the one element in which nothing can actually live.

The secret of 'fusion' is the fact that the artist's eye sees in nature... an inexhaustible wealth of tension, rhythms, continuities, and contrasts which can be rendered in line and color.

Music is the tonal analogue of emotive life.

The high intellectual value of images, however, lies in the fact that they usually, and perhaps always, fit more than one actual experience.

If a work of art is a projection of feeling, its kinship with organic nature will emerge, no matter through how many transformations, logically and inevitably.

The fairytale is irresponsible; it is frankly imaginary, and its purpose is to gratify wishes, as a dream doth flatter.

If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.

...yelling doesn't make a thing any more possible.

Whoever wants to be an overnight success must be willing to sweat for it during the day.

Love and hate, despite their polar opposites, are both feelings that are induced by passion. I can handle that. It's the indifference I don't know how to process.

The kind of thing I'm good at is knowing every politician in the state and remembering where he itches. And I know where to scratch him.

As long as that spark of passion is missing there is no human significance in the performance.

Boys don't cry-or at least that's what everybody's supposed to believe.

I'm a woman of a certain age who doesn't have kids and never really settled down ... I enjoy kids but not for long periods. I think they're adorable and funny and sweet, and then I have a headache.

I got a new dog. He's a paranoid retriever. He brings back everything because he's not sure what I threw him.

Multiculturalism is a good reminder that when standards are relative, there are no standards at all.