There can be no question of holding forth on ethics. I have seen people behave badly with great morality and I note every day that integrity has no need of rules

There is scarcely any passion without struggle.

Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.

Man cannot do without beauty, and this is what our era pretends to want to disregard.

Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.

A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.

What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

There is no longer a single idea explaining everything, but an infinite number of essences giving a meaning to an infinite number of objects. The world comes to a stop, but also lights up.

What I believe to be true I must therefore preserve. What seems to me so obvious, even against me, I must support.

Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one's consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.

When was the last time you had a good belly-shaking-tear-jerking-snot-producing laugh?That long?

Defeat is a thing of weariness, of incoherence, of boredom, and above all futility.

You always gotta be on time, an hour ahead of everything. You always gotta be prepared.

A tomato may be a fruit, but it is a singular fruit. A savory fruit. A fruit that has ambitions far beyond the ambitions of other fruits.

If you're a Conservative, why aren't you behind conserving the land?

I am only a public entertainer who understands his time.

I make sure to use my life for that which can be of goodwill. It has fortified me spiritually and emotionally

...gender relationships, which are tough for people to deal with, are key to whether a society orients to domination or partnership in all its relations.

A lot of my early career, I wrote story songs that had narratives, that had plots.