The wise man does not discriminate; he gathers all the shreds of light, from wherever they may come.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

To survive, you must tell stories.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Kindness is not entered onto the great ledger of civilisation.

Even the wisest men make fools of themselves about women and even the most foolish women are wise about men.

Prayer changes things.

What was once thought can never be unthought.

Smells, like music, hold memories. She breathed deep, and bottled it up for posterity.

If you entrench yourself behind strong fortifications, you compel the enemy seek a solution elsewhere.

The battle of the North Atlantic is a grim business, and it isn't going to be won by charm and personality.

I was working at this club in downtown L.A. from four to eight at night, just Eddie Rubin, the drummer, and I.

What is my life for and what am I going to do with it? I don't know and I'm afraid.

For those that say I endanger my child: it's more likely that you will fall while walking on the sidewalk than I will while skating with my daughter.