I don't think I've ever been particularly scared of death - but scared of dying, the process. It doesn't seem to be a good way of doing it.

Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.

Religious belief is without reason and without dignity, and its record is near-universally dreadful.

Probably human cruelty is fixed and eternal. Only styles change.

My life looked good on paper - where, in fact, almost all of it was being lived.

When the past is forgotten, the present is unforgettable

Closure is a greasy little word which, moreover, describes a nonexistent condition. The truth, Venus, is that nobody gets over anything.

Perhaps there are other bits of my life that would take on content, take on shadow, if only I read more and thought less about money.

When you’ve lost all your play, guess what love becomes. Work. Work that gets harder every hour.

Love is blind; but it makes you see the blind man; teetering on the roadside . . .

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

A hunted man sometimes wearies of distrust and longs for friendship.

It’s not ever easy telling a person what they don’t want to hear. Because we love them! There will be times

If it’s true that nothing is more potent than an idea, then those who control the media can direct minds en masse.

If dirt were trumps, what hands you would hold!

The great minds approaching understanding will admit they continually gain more questions and less answers.

In my mind I am eloquent; I can climb intricate scaffolds of words to reach the highest cathedral ceilings and paint my thoughts. But when I open my mouth, everything collapses.

Scepticism, like wisdom, springs out in full panoply only from the brain of a god, and it is little profit to see an idea in its growth, unless we track its seed to the power which sowed it.

When we view elevated ideas of Nature, the result of that view is admiration, which is always the cause of pleasure.

I'll never forget what it was like to hold my wife and children again, to know that I was home, to know that I had managed to survive.

I started my music career at 18 and for a long while I let other people handle my affairs.