The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history.

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.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

All religions are man-made God has not yet revealed himself beyond doubt to anybody.

The Big Dream shattered splinters into a thousand little dreams.

Everything has been figured out, except how to live.

The stones tear like flesh, rather than breaking. Although what happens is violent, it is a violence that is in stone. A tear is more unnerving than a break.

By persistent labor man may attain to all excellence.

The greatest acts in colored show business had long made Harlem their home and favorite stamping ground.

Logic plus logic equals the illogical. Do you know what I mean?

The act is judged of by the event.

All the things we have to remember, and I've mentioned this before, is that we're all artists.

I think one of the most poignant things is unrequited love and loneliness.