Stories--individual stories, family stories, national stories--are what stitch together the disparate elements of human existence into a coherent whole. We are story animals.

Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is colour that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

Afterwards, when it's all over, you meet God. What do you say to God?

Just as music is noise that makes sense, a painting is color that makes sense, so a story is life that makes sense.

Life and death live and die in exactly the same spot, the body.

In anything you set out to do, don't try your best. Do your best.

What a folly to dread the thought of throwing away life at once and yet have no regard to throwing it away by parcels and piecemeal.

There began to appear before my romantic eyes...a vast and complicated network of espionage, terror, sadism and hate, from which no one, official or private, could escape.

Nobody wants to read about a good-looking happy person.

After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?.

A fella who accepts himself and is relaxed into who he is - that appeals to people.

If you want to be friend of progression, be the enemy of fear!

Before becoming an actor I kind of just wanted to paint and live somewhere and do something low-key and artistic.

Beauty is the vocation bestowed on the artist by the Creator in the gift of artistic talent.

When I do older folk songs, I'm not doing them because they're old. I have no interest in reviving or continuing a tradition. I'm just doing them because they're great songs.