Somewhere in [China's] soul lurks the cunning of an old dog, and it is a cunning that is strangely impressive. What a strange old soul! What a great old soul!

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.

Happiness has always seemed like a bluebird, and consists of moments.

A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon ruined for him already.

Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.

When Small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.

Neckties strangle clear thinking.

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

There is so much to love and to admire in this life that it is an act of ingratitude not to be happy and content in this existence.

I have a hankering to go back to the Orient and discard my necktie. Neckties strangle clear thinking.

It's the broken plans you have made that are the hardest to get over.

I'm not on good terms with any of my exes. That's why we're not together anymore. We're not friends.

The press gave me a voice too quickly, and that could have unsettled a man who had every right to feel he should be in control of the thing he had created.

It is a difficult matter to keep love imprisoned.

I like to praise and reward in a loud voice and to scold in a whisper.

We go for our own reality. I remember some of our guys saying it is way harder to make stylized art directed explosions of jade rather than a regular explosion of shrapnel.

But which was the real me? Let me be perfectly honest: I was a man of many faces. (p.33)

I think all the bad blood started when Geffen released a greatest hits package of my solo stuff.

I don’t think books can change the world, but when the world begins to change, it searches for different books.

I bet you, if I had met Trotsky, and had had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I have never yet met a man I didn't like.