People go on quarrelling and fancying this and that, and thinking that the world is full of romance and poetry. When they get married they know better.

An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.

When the ivy has found its tower, when the delicate creeper has found its strong wall, we know how the parasite plants grow and prosper.

Never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.

Fame is a skittish jade, more fickle even than Fortune, and apt to shy, and bolt, and plunge away on very trifling causes.

What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?

The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

It has now become the doctrine of a large clan of politicians that political honesty is unnecessary, slow, subversive of a man's interests, and incompatible with quick onward movement.

There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

What you will endure determines what you will become.

There comes a point where you have to stop trying to repair yourself and accept the fact that you're broken.

The world of literature is a sacred mirror that shows not the reality around us but the dreams and fears that reality stimulates: It’s not where we live, but life itself.

I'm not interested in dating. I like being with my own best friend, me. Certain women, particularly older women, cannot believe I like going to a social event by myself. But I do.

If you do it properly, life is art, really.

History is the memory of States.

The martyrs shook the powers of darkness with the irresistible power of weakness.

I talk about acting to students making the transition from high school to UCLA. Kids going into this profession really need to know the reality of it.

I feel so small I could sit on a dime an' my legs wouldn't even hang over.

Initially we performed in halls with capacities of 1,000.