A l'intérieur de ce corps vivait l'âme d'une intellectuelle et poète dont personne n'avait le soupçon. Within this body lived the soul of an intellectual and poet, which nobody had suspected.

I prefer insomnia to anaesthesia.

I vividly remember the stories my grandfather told me about the carnage of the First World War, which people tend to forget was one of the worst massacres in human history.

It's the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.

I live quietly at home among my family and friends.

But democracy isn't a state of perfection. It has to be improved, and that means constant vigilance.

People with lots of doubts sometimes find life more oppressive and exhausting than others, but they're more energetic - they aren't robots.

But I don't think I have any particular talent for prediction, because when you have three or four elements in hand, you don't have to be a genius to reach certain conclusions.

There are some fundamental values it's impossible to be wrong about.

Eco sees the intellectual as an organizer of culture, someone who can run a magazine or a museum. An administrator, in fact. I think this is a melancholy situation for an intellectual.

Perfection spawns doctrines, dictators and totalitarian ideas.

They sicken of the calm who know the storm.

We’re not dreamers. We’re awaking from a dream turning into a nightmare. We’re not destroying anything. We’re watching the system destroy itself.

I never sleep comfortably except when I am at sermon or when I pray to God.

Though politics is by nature divisive, surely we all can agree that foster children need stability, safety, education, opportunity - and love.

One reason I never patent my products is that if I did it would take so much time, I would get nothing else done. But mainly I don't want my discoveries to benefit specific favored persons.

It's the diversity of intelligence, the diversity of creativity, that is so very much necessary to creating whole solutions.

Good heavens, of what un costly material is our earthly happiness composed... if we only knew it. What incomes have we not had from a flower, and how unfailing are the dividends of the seasons.

They have more ability in the middle of the field in terms of ability

All my friends from my past would know me as Scott Diggs. Taye Diggs comes from Scott-taye. When I went to college I liked it because it was so different and I have an infatuation with nicknames.

For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice.