Each economy relies on the credit system, that is, on the erroneous assumption that the other will pay back money pumped.

A country is not only what it does but what it tolerates.

The advantage of wisdom is that you can play dumb. The opposite is more difficult.

Nothing is more difficult and nothing requires more character than to find oneself in open opposition to ones time (and those one loves) and to say loudly: No!

Expect nothing. Today: that is your life.

One man's death: that is a catastrophe. A hundred thousand dead: that is a statistic

Those who hate most fervently must have once loved deeply; those who want to deny the world must have once embraced what they now set on fire.

How wonderful it is, to be silent with someone.

The world isn't purposeful. It isn't ruled by reason. The world wants to play. Fashion queens have always aroused more interest than future generations and their fate.

Germany is an anatomical oddity: it writes with its left hand and acts with its right.

Language is a weapon, keep it honed!

The sum of all your mistakes are equal to your success

Success is a bag of determination about to erupt.

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Your choices make you whoever you turn out to be.

My first reading of Tolstoy affected me as a revelation from heaven, as the trumpet of the judgment. What he made me feel was notthe desire to imitate, but the conviction that imitation was futile.

Do not tell me you don’t know you’re pretty. If so, I’m about to lose all faith in mankind. You don’t want to be responsible for that.

Advocacy groups, politicians, and bureaucrats use the government to advance their private good instead of the common good.

We always use plywood rather than MDF for structural stuff for the same reasons [stability].

If I have to draw attention away from some hormone-induced acne on my chin, I put on a lot of mascara.

I always used to develop a cold going into the studio.