The profit we possess after study is to have become better and wiser.

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

Valor is stability, not of legs and arms, but of courage and the soul.

The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.

A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.

My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband.

Experience has taught me this, that we undo ourselves by impatience. Misfortunes have their life and their limits, their sickness and their health.

Marriage is like a cage; one sees the birds outside desperate to get in, and those inside equally desperate to get out.

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

Everything will turn out right, the world is built on that.

Nothing's perfect, the world's not perfect, but it's there for us, trying the best it can. That's what makes it so damn beautiful.

Librarians are notorious snitches—don’t let anybody convince you otherwise.

If you spend any time in Los Angeles, there's only one topic of conversation.

Don't wait for permission to do something creative.

Taste is, so to speak, the microscope of the judgment.

I wish in my own mind I were more definite - that I was absolutely convinced I'd never direct someone else's script, but I keep reading scripts, because I might find something.

It is not enough to do a desktop exercise of a Beethoven symphony. You need to practice with an orchestra. The musicians need to read the notes. Otherwise it will be a disaster.

I'm not saying my teachers should have rapped my lessons or anything, but I feel if I had made more of a connection to them I would have gotten more out of school.

Tis time to fear when tyrants seem to kiss.