We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack. Therefore, rather than grateful, we are bitter.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why.

What is the charm in dying when we fully well know that we are not going to get another chance at living?

A simple I love you means more than money.

Nothing is in the intellect that was not first in the senses.

There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power.

I do labor - it's part of the process. Writing is no easier today than it was in the beginning: writing well is very hard to do. Always.

He realized that all his life he had been a nobody to everyone. What he now felt was the fear of his own oblivion. It was as though he did not exist.

You don't take a job in acting at all expecting 25 years in and a pension.

China has lunged into the 21st century, while India is still lurching toward it.

When I watched American Idol, I always thought Simon was the most realistic. Simon's like, It was absolutely horrid. That's what they tell in the music industry.