Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.

One thought-murder a day keeps the psychiatrist away.

If I'm out of my mind, it's all right with me, thought Moses Herzog.

Every treasure is guarded by dragons. That's how you can tell it's valuable.

With one long breath, caught and held in his chest, he fought his sadness over his solitary life. Don't cry, you idiot! Live or die, but don't poison everything...

. . . Nietzche himself had a Christian view of history, seeing the present moment always as some crisis, some fall from classical greatness, some corruption or evil to be saved from.

You have to have the power to employ pain, to repent, to be illuminated, you must have the opportunity and even the time.

Strict and literal truthfulness was a trivial game and might even be a disagreeable neurotic affliction.

I am a prisoner of perception, a compulsory witness.

Your authority and my degeneracy are one in the same.

Emancipation resulting in madness. Unlimited freedom to choose and play a tremendous variety of roles with a lot of coarse energy.

What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

When you understand who you are, you cause the world to change in your favor.

I ran to my marriage, I was happily ready to take on marriage.

Don't tell me what they did to you as though you had no choice. Tell me, isn't that your picture? Isn't that your voice.

You get addicted to emotions. Our endorphins kick in and it's like a high. On the low end you might love roller coasters. On the high end you might be a bank robber or something.

The hardest exercise for most of us fat people is that one where we push our chairback from the dinner table.

While the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.

Enthusiasm releases the drive to carry you over obstacles and adds significance to all you do.

The only good thing about times of adversity is that you realize who your real friends and fans are - and the rest go away - which in my mind is an OK thing.

I'm trying to make records where people don't feel cheated. Nashville has been guilty of insulting the Country Music audience for years and years.