You see, my ambition was not to confound the engineering world but simply to create a beautiful piece of art.

If we listen human instinct actually tells us what we need, but advertising makes us want things we don't need and things we can't have.

He was so tenacious he defied the distraction of women by refusing to have them in his presence, just as later in life he denied his blindness by calling for more and more candles.

The engine of ancient society was religion but the engine of contemporary society, as I see it, is advertising.

If you look closely you can see that they are all interconnected, symbolic of a never-ending circle in which it is simply impossible for the dog to catch the rabbit.

The chariot was purchased by a private collector who took it home to New York. I take pleasure in knowing that it was built to last for at least a thousand years.

In the fairy tale the painting represents the here and now. The book is actually divided into five sections, through which the key character, the muse, leads us.

The dog and the rabbit are telling us not to chase unattainable material goals.

Having designed and built several clocks during my career it suddenly occurred to me that when you look at the face of a clock both hands have the same center.

I started by looking at what others had done before me. You see, over the years there have been attempts by many different people to reconstruct the chariot.

I took lots of photographs and had planned to write a treatise on how it worked, but I quickly got bored with that idea and wrote a scientific fairy tale instead.

The surest cure for selfishness is to continually practice random acts of kindness.

These intellectual guys don't like to have an intellectual conversation with you unless they're running the whole thing.

Over my life as a teacher, women have been too quiet. I'm quiet myself. I don't think I said three words the whole of graduate school.

Choose clients as you would friends.

Werewolves are much more common animals than you might think.

I think it's good to have the alone time. Well, I kind of have to, because I have to be alone in order to work, so I have alone time. And then I go on tour and I have being-around-people time.

I always knew what I thought the theme was, the core, in one word. In 'The Godfather' it was succession. In 'The Conversation' it was privacy. In 'Apocalypse' it was morality.

A lot of artists who have a certain style are expected to more or less keep doing their style. It's so easy to get into that rut of production.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle

I just want to be a part of great stories, whether I'm part of an amazing ensemble cast or I'm leading it or the antagonist or whatever.