Women have no appreciation of good looks-at least, good women have not.

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.

Yet you stand, too ashamed to run, too fearful to embrace. God I see so much ofwhat I love in that face.

When dawn comes, that memory gradually distances...Tonight, I will bring it to sleep with me, so that will not be taken away by the waves of the night...

Still yourself to steel yourself.

Religion is either something we scorn because we are too rational or it's the realm of the fanatic who insists that their God and their religion is the only way and everyone else is dammed.

The past doesn't buy you much.

I literally want to work until I'm in the grave.

Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear.

My fame came from my success as a country music singer.

Life is interesting. Non-life, not so much.

And lash the vice and follies of the age.