We are made mysteries to ourselves by the Rooster Coop we are locked in.

It's amazing. The moment you show cash, everyone knows your language.

A man's past keeps growing, even when his future has come to a full stop.

I was looking for the key for years But the door was always open

The moment you recognize what is beautiful in this world, you stop being a slave

You can't expect a man in a dung heap to smell sweet.

Columbia University, where I went to study in 1993, insisted its undergraduates learn a foreign language, so I discovered French.

See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of?? Losing weight and looking like the poor.

You ask 'Are you a man or a demon?' Neither, I say. I have woken up, and the rest of you are sleeping, and that is the only difference between us.

Neither you nor I speak English, but there are some things that can be said only in English.

The story of a poor man's life is written on his body, in a sharp pen.

All cynics are disappointed idealists. The more stars in the eyes, the harder the fall.

Your art…” I gaped at the field of white. “There was a lovely portrait of me—right there.”I get offended whenever art is damaged, especially if that art features me.

The canvas is the door to another dimension. The paintbrush is the key.

Too much praise makes you feel you must be doing something terribly wrong.

What is desperately needed... is the skepticism and the sense of history that a liberal arts education provides.

Poetry has been to me something more than amusement, it has been a cheering companion when I had no other to fly to, a delightful solace.

A company in which anyone is afraid to speak up, to differ, to be daring and original, is closing the coffin door on itself.

When a door closes you have two choices: give up, or keep going

Thank you, but diamonds break easier than gold and people shine more through brokenness.

Critical opinion on my films has always been salvaged by what I would call subsequent critical opinion.