John Quotes

One degrades oneself sometimes in the effort not to be lonely.

They're beautiful. But sad.' Everything's sad if you make it so, I said.

Stained glass, engraved glass, frosted glass; give me plain glass.

It is not only species of animal that die out, but whole species of feeling. And if you are wise you will never pity the past for what it did not know, but pity yourself for what it did.

Being an atheist is a matter not of moral choice, but of human obligation.

Most marriages recognize this paradox: Passion destroys passion; we want what puts an end to wanting what we want.

Between skin and skin, there is only light.

Ask me to marry you." "Will you marry me?" "No.

It was too exactly as imagined to be true. But I felt as gladly and expectantly disorientated, as happily and alertly alone, as Alice in Wonderland.

I knew words were like chains, they held me back . . . the act of description taints the description.

We can sometimes recognize the looks of a century ago on a modern face; but never those of a century to come.

If you want to be true to life, start lying about it

He knew the world and its absurdities as only an intelligent Irishman can; which is to say that where his knowledge or memory failed him, his imagination was always ready to fill the gap.

No amount of reading and intelligent deduction could supplant the direct experience.

The newspapers are full of what we would like to happen to us and what we hope will never happen to us.

Only fools think our attitude to our fellow men is a thing distinct from our attitude to 'lesser' life on this planet.

Thomas Beecham was a pompous little band-master who stood against everything creative in the art of his time.

Edith Sitwell's interest in art was largely confined to portraits of herself.

Evolution did not intend trees to grow singly. Far more than ourselves they are social creatures, and no more natural as isolated specimens than man is as a marooned sailor or hermit.

The diary will really try and tell people who you are and what you were. The alternative is writing nothing, or creating a totally lifeless, as it is leafless, garden.

Just those three words, said and meant. I love you. They were quite hopeless. He said it as he might have said, I have cancer. His fairy story.

You must make, always. You must act, if you believe something. Talking about acting is like boasting about pictures you're going to paint. The most terrible bad form.

Greece is like a mirror. It makes you suffer. Then you learn.' To live alone?' To live. With what you are.

The ordinary man is the curse of civilization.

I mean I never feel I feel what I ought to feel.

There are two kinds of hangover: in one you feel ill and incapable, in the other you feel ill and lucid.

Duty is but a pot. It holds whatever is put in it, from the greatest evil to the greatest good.

There is no plan. All is hazard. And the only thing that will preserve us is ourselves.

You put up with your voice and speak with it because you haven't any choice. But it's what you say that counts.

He's not human; he's an empty space disguised as a human.

If anything might hurt her, silence would; and I wanted to hurt her.

That's the trouble with provincial life. Everyone knows everyone and there is no mystery. No romance.

An aphorism is a generalization, therefore not modern.

The great majority of modern third-person narration is "I" narration very thinly disguised.

One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true

The best wines take the longest to mature.

I would visit Vegas every year when I was a kid. Vegas, to a kid, is a playground, as much as it is to adults. I discovered the magic store in a hotel and would spend hours and hours in there.

One of the first lessons you learn as an actor is to listen.

The first thing I can really tell you is I really love the work.

I really, really love directing films.

I think I've made some pretty decent films in the '80s and '90s.

And I kind of feel that I have a responsibility to the people that invest their time and money with me to show up on the set every day and do the best of which I am capable.

If you cast the picture correctly, you have a whole lot of leeway. You can make mistakes in other aspects but pull it off with the right actors.

If you don't cast well, you can be in real trouble.

The whole thing of this business is to retain your enthusiasm and, in a sense, retain your innocence and try to practice as much humility as possible.

It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never acting toward it.

We should remember that it is quite as much a part of friendship to be delicate in its demands as to be ample in its performances.

For should your hands drop white and empty All the toys of the world would break.

The greater the trust within the couple, the greater the opening to share in love.

Be passionate. Generate the magnetic power of eros through sensual, mental, and spiritual delight.