Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

I needed someone to tell me that I was sane, that I was special, and that I wasn't all that special.

I have lived and worked in Britain all my life. Not even in the dark days of penal Labour taxation in the Seventies did I have any intention of leaving the country of my birth.

We shall take great care not to annoy the horse and spoil his friendly charm, for it is like the scent of a blossom - once lost it will never return

I guess I just don't have the killer instinct that I think makes a great political cartoonist.

Let not the tongue give utterance to the evil that is in thine heart, but command thy tongue to be silent until good shall prevail over evil.

My political career goes back to the '60s and those were times of vigorous debates.

I wound up signing to RCA Victor as a trumpeter, guesting on shows like Jackie Gleason's Honeymooners.

My first major role was in a play called Through the Leaves.

When you have seen the things I have seen and traveled all over the world, you would not be honest to yourself and the world to [look away].

We talked [with Scott Derrickson] about making it kind of muscular and practical. Yeah it's a fantasy but what's the difference between fantasy and reality really?