To be a friend of the weak-that is the artist's point of departure as well as his ultimate goal.

What uneasiness lies in being loved.

For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces.

The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness

A true artist is an ugly man.

Now even if I die, no one will be so grieved as to do himself bodily harm.

I like roses best. But they bloom in all four seasons. I wonder if people who like roses best have to die four times over again.

But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.

Victims. Victims of a transitional period of morality. That is what we both certainly are.

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.

Addiction is perhaps a sickness of the spirit.

We are products of time

The country was in peril

Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom.

Since the generality of persons act from impulse, much more than from principle, men are neither so good nor so bad as we are apt to think them.

I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem.

Why not be a top-notcher? A top-notcher is simply an individual who works for the institution of which he is a part, not against it.

Faith is the consolation of the wretched and the terror of the happy.

I grew up in the Lower East Side, an Italian American - more Sicilian, actually.

In order to heal others, we first need to heal ourselves. And to heal ourselves, we need to know how to deal with ourselves.

I’m unelectable in the District of Columbia.