Talk uses up ideas. ... Once I have spoken them aloud they are lost to me dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them like bulbs in the rich soil of silence do they grow.

Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow.

Old age is somewhat like dieting. Every day there is less of us to be observed.

My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

one keeps one's friends better when one is alone. The corollary to this is that one loses one's friends, slowly, when one sees them too often or when they visit for too long a time.

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

What others regard as retreat from them or rejection of them is not those things at all but instead a breeding ground for greater friendship, a culture for deeper involvement, eventually, with them.

A hand up is worthier than one's own fist grasping a higher rung of the ladder.

Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose.

We were determined by public opinions of us. Would we think we existed without outside confirmation? And how long would we live apart from others before we began to doubt our existence?

My eyes glaze over at a writer solving tiny problems.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

And where there are shadows, there is light, Liebchen.

Devil has to offer many diabolical grimaces: One of these caricatures is prejudice, it stirs up hatred.

One good test of whether an economy is humanistic or not is the plausibility of earning the ability to drop out of it for a while without incident or insult.

There are a lot of people building small ideas now. There's an idealization of being an entrepreneur, but the most important thing is to have a really great idea.

Deep rivers run quiet.

I expect of abstraction as much as what imagery does for me... to carry meaning.

The best thing to spend on your children is your time.

Happiness is a choice.

I always think once you have the lead protagonist, you cast around that character.