Our present-day artists do not transform, they deform. That gives pleasure to nobody. It changes everything, therefore it changes nothing.

Unkindness almost always stands for the displeasure that one has in oneself.

I can easily do without people (there are days when I could easily do without myself), and ... in the country of books where I dwell, the dead can count entirely as much as the living.

It matters less to venerate things than to live with them on terms of good friendship.

The sight or sound of perfect things causes a certain suffering.

Abstract art: a construction site for high fashion, for advertising, for furniture.

German civility, which often seems stiff to us, shows an attentive and touching respect for the person that I often prefer to our offhandedness.

Vulgar, but not as vulgar as Louis Vuitton, thought Sherman.

I'm just very amused by five-year-old humor.

Anyone who edits their own copy has a fool for an editor.

I kind of knew that there were a lot of people that didn't go to church and normally wouldn't listen to people, but they would come and listen to me talk.

Spending time at the Federal Reserve was a good learning opportunity for me. It helped me to understand economic philosophies and polices that I had not previously known about.

When I'm on stage, I'm trying to do one thing: bring people joy.

Avarice is a cursed vice: offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger.

...until the Crusades Islam was indistinguishable from Judaism and... only then did it receive its independent character, while Muhammad and the first Caliphs are mythical figures.

I get energy from meditation practice and from eating healthy fresh food, only one cup of espresso in the morning, and not drinking too much.

Rosencrantz: I don't believe in it anyway. Guildenstern: What? Rosencrantz: England. Guildenstern: Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?