The melancholy thing about the world is that it is full of stupid people; and the world is run for the benefit of the stupid and common.

That element of surprise is what I look for when I am writing. It is my way of judging what I am doing - which is never an easy thing to do.

The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.

One isn’t born one’s self. One is born with a mass of expectations, a mass of other people’s ideas – and you have to work through it all.

Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision.

It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.

The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

One always writes comedy at the moment of deepest hysteria.

The world is always in movement.

All the details of the life and the quirks and the friendships can be laid out for us, but the mystery of the writing will remain. No amount of documentation, however fascinating, can take us there.

His eyes are blazing with light, more light than all the lights in every city in the whole world, more light than we could ever invent if we had ten thousand billion years.

Stay true to yourself and listen to your inner voice. It will lead you to your dream.

Today my goal is to be more productive than I was yesterday, and tomorrow more productive than today.

civilization is the very root cause of the woes of civilization

In fact, this is a blackmail of the terrorists at the expense of the suffering of the hostages.

Few of us are granted the grace to know ourselves, and until we do, maybe the best we can do is be consistent.

In the modern world, the interests of a particular community can no longer be considered to lie within the confines of its own boundaries.

Keeping stationary drains your brain, but moving around shows you new things, new inspiration, and keeps the blood moving.

You might argue that I make the rounds no matter what year it is, but sometimes the human race likes to crank things up a little. They increase the production of bodies and their escaping souls.

My friend Jerry Falwell was the one who said it, and he was a guest on my show, and it's hard to take the blame for everybody who shows up on your show.