[On STDs] This be Nature’s way of recommending monogamy.

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

Cynicism is a disease. Optimism is the cure.

A passive mindset "manages" to live with mediocre, but an active mindset "leads" to change until excellence results.

I seek the utmost pleasure and the least pain.

I always find that 90% of the performance, for me, is about what comes from inside.

Actors tend to get better with age. You start cutting away the useless stuff and achieving a point of effortlessness and simplicity, which is all you want to do, with any art at all.

When I turn up at a trendy party, all the youngsters look like they could be my illegitimate love children.

I write every day. Even if I'm not writing well, I write through it. I can fix a bad page. I can't fix a blank one.

In larger things we are convivial; what causes trouble is the trivial.

One day I will have to forgive life for ending, I tell myself. I will have to learn how to let life be life with its unbearable finality ... just be what it is.

How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field... Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.