The bad novelist constructs his characters; he directs them and makes them speak. The true novelist listens to them and watches them act; he hears their voices even before he knows them.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.

It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you are not.

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.

We should enjoy this summer, flower by flower, as if it were to be the last one we’ll see.

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.

Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.

The thing I am most aware of is my limits. And this is natural; for I never, or almost never, occupy the middle of my cage; my whole being surges toward the bars.

True intelligence very readily conceives of an intelligence superior to its own; and this is why truly intelligent men are modest.

Tell me your thinking, and I’ll tell you what your life looks like.

If you are only moved by color relationships, you are missing the point. I am interested in expressing the big emotions - tragedy, ecstasy, doom.

A day out-of-doors, someone I loved to talk with, a good book and some simple food and music - that would be rest.

It was either Voltaire or Charlie Sheen who said, 'We are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. And anything in between that can give us the illusion that we're not, we cling to.'

Man usually believes, if only words he hears, That also with them goes material for thinking. [Ger., Gewohnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hort, Es musse sich dabei doch auch was denken.]

Broad, wholesome, charitable views .. can not be acquired by vegetating in one's little corner of the earth.

Whatever is spoken of acquires a certain existence.

God puts rainbows in the clouds so that each of us - in the dreariest and most dreaded moments - can see a possibility of hope.

Do you love me?" he asked. I fell silent. "For the rest of it is glitter and noise," he said. "At the heart of it all is love. You make that choice, and you go forward from there.

I like that band Get Hustle. They're cool live. I haven't heard their records, though.