No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.

There is a tragic flaw in our precious constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center.

He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.

About astrology and palmistry: they are good because they make people vivid and full of possibilities. They are communism at its best. Everybody has a birthday and almost everybody has a palm.

We are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Don't be bashful

It may be prodigious, but it's all Greek to me!

You do not need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of

silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.

The only way to be true to our American tradition is to maintain absolute governmental neutrality regarding religious beliefs and practices

The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

But don't call me an actor. I'm just a worker. I am an entertainer. Don't say that what I am doing is art.

I don't want any special powers. I'm powerless. I wouldn't want to see into the future, I wouldn't want to know what anyone was thinking, ever! And I don't want to relive my past.

I would gladly admit women are superior to men if only they would stop trying to be the same as us.

People don't remember each tree in a park but all of us benefit from the trees. And in a way, artists are like trees in a park.