Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become acrobats, we can judge them.

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.

Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else.

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.

What fire does not destroy, it hardens

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Her grandparents’ house was an old crammed up space just like all the others there, but to Sofia it had the luxuries of a palace and the reverence of a church.

As if Spade's chivalry would allow him to do anything to a woman. The harshest punishment she could imagine him dishing out to Cat would be refusing to open a door for her.

Moral values, and a culture and a religion, maintaining these values are far better than laws and regulations.

Australia has a thing where apparently it's fine for me to dress up as an Asian woman. No one has questioned that.

Even though the story [Fences] is set during the 1950s, some contemporary women might have trouble understanding her decision.

Change the leader, change the organization.

The first item I designed for a real person was when I was about 10 and I made my first item of clothing for myself.

I don't want to do anything like Can't Hardly Wait, I don't want to do anything like Scream. I saw all those movies, and they were good, but they're just not what I want to do.

I started playing jazz by slowing down Tal Farlow records and analyzing his runs

Some people just have a natural gift and some people really have to work at it and I'm more of the second kind. I always had to grind it out, where from him it just flowed.