When someone gives me three reasons instead of one, I'm inclined not to believe any of them.

The smell of moist earth and lilacs hung in the air like wisps of the past and hints of the future.

the smell of lilacs crept poignantly into the room like a remembered spring.

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines.

Shrews are made, not born.

You can't drown your troubles ... because troubles can swim.

There is no such thing as an ex-exhibitionist.

When you're counting alibis and not apples, one plus one equals none.

Common sense is a vastly overrated virtue. I myself prefer the spark of genius.

I wish people would quit telling me to think. I think. Thinking's easy. It's not thinking that's hard.

Violence is the instinctive response to fear.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

I didn't know if it would be a success-ful one, or what the stages would be, but I always saw myself as a lifetime musician and songwriter.

There's nobody who doesn't have problems with the church, because there's sin in the church. But there's no other place to be a Christian except the church.

If a western is a good western, it gives you a sense of that world and some of the qualities those men had - their comradeship, loyalty, and physical courage.

For forty years I was conscripted by the absolute, the neurosis. The absolute is gone. There remain countless tasks among which literature is in no way privileged.

I'd stop in the middle of a gun fight and sing a song.

I am much afraid that we shall have very greatly hastened the decline and ruin of the New World by our contagion, and that we willhave sold it our opinions and our arts very dear.

Incidents should not govern policy; but, policy incidents.

Concerning no subject would [George Bernard] Shaw be deterred by the minor accident of total ignorance from penning a definitive opinion.

I've only made short films and two features, which are very different. One is a surreal comedy, and the other is a period tragedy. I'm curious to know what misconceptions this could trigger