The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

Mastering others is strength. Mastering oneself makes you fearless.

I’m in a secret underground hideout of a group of monster hunters, filled with magical totems, brass monkeys that move and enough firepower to take over a small country.

The fundamental thing about sketching is that it isabout asking not telling

I was looking to show people I could act. I was looking for something that would take me away from the whole hunk riding off into the sunset thing that people wanted me to play after Brown Sugar.

It's not like it used to be where everybody has a record company to belong to.

However closely people are attached to one another, their mutual horizon nonetheless includes all four compass directions, and nowand again they notice it.

An ideal's love-fraught, imperious call That bides the spheres become articulate.

The answer to helplessness is not so very complicated.

Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time. -Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur

All through the ages the African people have made efforts to deliver themselves from oppressive forces.