You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force.

From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own.

Pardon one offence, and you encourage the commission of many.

One ungrateful person does an injury to all needy people.

Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage.

Would you have a great empire? Rule over yourself.

Tears gratify a savage nature, they do not melt it.

How unhappy is he who cannot forgive himself.

It matters not what you are thought to be, but what you are.

A tongue prone to slander is the proof of a depraved mind.

Never promise more than you can perform.

The girls took into their own hands decisions better left to God. They became too powerful to live among us, too self-concerned, too visionary, too blind.

I hear some people say, "I wish I could rewind time." But why rewind time, when every single day brings a great opportunity to start a wonderful new beginning?

The harmonica is the world's best-selling musical instrument. You're welcome.

The power and depth of Japanese acting certainly inspired me, so I was determined that Hollywood was going to get a taste of that, that Americans were going to get a taste of Japanese action.

There are no mute, inglorious Miltons, save in the hallucinations of poets. The one sound test of a Milton is that he functions as a Milton.

I can imagine [the government] trying to tell Steven Spielberg 'We need 50 different cuts of your movie for each state.' It will screw us up in a real way.

Long before feminism made fashion a guilty pleasure, my first experience of the sisterhood among strangers took place in a communal dressing room.

Don't tell me the sky's the limit.

We dominate the scene and we will continue to impose our will on this country.

A novel, I think, is partly about the contemporary and partly about the eternal, and it's the balance of that that's difficult to achieve.