Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.

Humanity lives in its fiction.

Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.

One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners in which the joy of living can sometimes hide away.

The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

I'm not an extraordinary worker, I'm an extraordinary daydreamer. I exceed all my fantasies-even that of writing.

A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be.

Writing is a noble privilege compared with the lot of most people, who live like parts of a machine, who live only to keep the gears of society pointlessly turning.

Life The machine The human soul A 75mm breech My portrait

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle.

My poor life This shawl Frayed on strongboxes full of gold I roll along with Dream And smoke And the only flame in the universe

If you start out by promising what you don't even have yet, you'll lose your desire to work toward getting it.

I like to think I'm a pretty good-natured guy and pretty civil and probably not ever truly guilty in any serious way of any legal infractions.

By and large, people who enjoy teaching animals to roll over will find themselves happier with a dog.

The wall, safe haven for what is forbidden, gives a voice to all those who would, without it, be condemned to silence

Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward.

I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.

Facebook says, 'Privacy is theft,' because they're selling your lack of privacy to the advertisers who might show up one day.

The difference between FEELING yourself in action, here and now, and visualizing yourself in action, as though you were on a motion-picture screen, is the difference between success and failure.

The way I make music is unique to myself and the way I have lived my life - no one else would tell that story in the same way that I do.

The Hindus have worshipped from ancient times the baby Krishna in the arms of Virgin Devaki just as the Roman catholics [sic] worship Madona [sic] with baby Christ.