Marriage, in contrast to the flu, starts with a fever and ends with the chills.

The Greeks possessed a knowledge of human nature we seem hardly able to attain to without passing through the strengthening hibernation of a new barbarism.

One might call habit a moral friction: something that prevents the mind from gliding over things but connects it with them and makes it hard for it to free itself from them.

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

There exists a species of transcendental ventriloquism by means of which men can be made to believe that something said on earth comes from Heaven.

Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity.

If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way.

Many things about our bodies would not seem to us so filthy and obscene if we did not have the idea of nobility in our heads.

To read means to borrow; to create out of one s readings is paying off one's debts.

Once we know our weaknesses they cease to do us any harm.

He who understands the wise is wise already.

I am the best person in the universe.

In order for grace to truly be grace, it has to extend to absolutely everyone, no matter what, no questions, no exceptions. Otherwise we think that somehow, by living a moral life...we've deserved it

Whenever I go out with other married couples, I like to bring along a single crackhead. Just to spice things up.

If you worry about who is going to get credit, you don't get much work done.

Almost every great innovation was [created] by government.

I don't really collect books. I tend to lose interest in them the minute I've read them, so most of the books I've read are left in airplanes and hotel rooms.

I would not like to have a homogeneous type of film. I wanted to go to many different kinds of ways of making cinema and telling stories and watching the country.

There are two pains in life. There is the pain of discipline and the pain of disappointment. If you can handle the pain of discipline, then you'll never have to deal with the pain of disappointment.

Following your heart's desire will lead you in the direction your spirit wants to go.

You can't get out-fought and out-desired. I don't want to see that again. I won't tolerate less than 100 percent desire. I'm their manager, not their babysitter.