Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life.

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.

The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.

The only important thing in a book is the meaning that it has for you.

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind.

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.

I just believe that the feeling of wonder is amazing. I am pushing myself as far as I can humanly push myself... I can only hope for the best and expect the worse.

At exhibition openings always praise the chicken for laying eggs; you can wring its neck later.

An architect is not an artist but an optimistic realist.

The character I play is a wonderful compilation of things I hate about myself and things I love about myself and things that I've invented to make her even more interesting than me.

Dogs are high on life. Cats need catnip.

It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men.

Gossip is the Devil's radio.

Having a great marriage isn't rocket science. It's simply a choice.

It is a time when one's spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why; when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death.

He's won't push me back on the night and he certainly wasn't going to push me back up there.