You must treat a work of art like a great man: stand before it and wait patiently till it deigns to speak.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

If you do not acquire good training in detachment, you may attach to all the wrong things.

It's pretty clear that [customers] know what their budgets are now, and what they want to spend it on.

When the whole world is running towards a cliff, he who is running in the opposite direction appears to have lost his mind.

Initially I started writing because I felt like I didn't fit in. I just moved to a new school and I felt quite lonely. I think that's where it all started for me.

There is no future and there is no past, there never has been, there never will be. You just think there is. It's not life that moves; it's awareness.

Every person on the streets of New York is a type. The city is one big theater where everyone is on display.

poetry ... is another way to be hurled straight into the heart of God.

We never had any children," he said ruefully. "Our work was our children.

In the original draft I was 27 and Peter was 55 in the script. That's not the same as a guy in his 40s and a dad in the end of his 70s. It's a different point in both our lives.

But in all things whether we shall make only a due use of the liberties we have asked, is left entirely to the judicious reader to decide.