When we are stirred to lament the loss of the gods, it is more than likely the gods who are doing the stirring.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

You don't need anybody's permission to prove yourself, just prove yourself.

I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is the language I don't understand.

Somerset House in London where at one time English vital statistics were kept - birth marriage and death records - was known as the egg factory "where they hatch 'em match 'em and dispatch 'em."

Music has been more, you know, the only thing I've ever known.

There are no manners left in America at all, because all you're doing is kicking the person next to you so that you can consume more, see more, and get more.

We are a great nation, which has lot to offer to the world, but to offer something to the world France has to remain France.

It is only by frequent deaths of ourselves and our self-centered desires that we can come to live more fully.

Your life is a reflection of how you think

God once declared He was true And then took the veil and withdrew.

Only man had dignity; only man, therefore, can be funny.