[On golf:] One of the most distressing defects of civilization.

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.

The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding.

Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?

This alone is to be feared - the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of the spirit. The death of the body is to that, I think, a little thing.

Nature is not silent, and never was a name more derisively inappropriate than when we speak of these non-human creatures who hoot and crow and bray as the dumb animals.

A sense of humor is so handy, isn't it? It lets you see both sides of a question so that you never need do anything.

I am much perturbed by this business of sickness. Our bodies seem so easily to leap into the saddle where our minds should be. People who are ill become changelings.

We each live in a private, distorted, individual world - stars turning in space, warmed for a moment by each other's light, then lost in infinite distance.

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

I am fierce for work. Without work I am nothing.

Next time when I dive into the territory that I had lived next to, where my sister grew up, I know what to expect. I would be ready. I would be prepared.

History has demonstrated that efforts to censure and control communication will not succeed.

France eats more conciously, more intelligently, than any other nation.

What matters are those ordinary acts of kindness and of love, not vaulting ambition with its attendant hubris and smugness.

Nationalism and extremism ... are spreading today like a cancerous growth in the fabric of people's national self-awareness.

Making films is great. You've got 100 people around and you're all dressing up and making weird art - it's a fun group activity.

I believe in telling the truth.

Women need chocolate. It's a scientific fact.

The hardest animal was the vulture. But the horses were great, the dog was great [in Valley of Violence]. It was really easy.