I used to carry a copy of Ulysses with me everywhere just in case I was knocked down by a bus. It seemed more important than having clean underwear.

The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

Great writers arrive among us like new diseases - threatening, powerful, impatient for patients to pick up their virus, irresistible.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings And some are treasured for their markings - They cause the eyes to melt Or the body to shriek without pain.

The task of the artist at any time is uncompromisingly simple — to discover what has not yet been done, and to do it.

No one is exempt and everyone's pain has a different smell. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairsand read about themselves—in colour, with their eyelids shut.

In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting.

He was making music - Howells, Finzi, Holst - so you could see the sounds in the serried air.Serried. Then just as suddenly empty when his sound-proof right hand closed off the notes.

You ought to be passionate about your dreams.

Sometimes you’re left with only 1 choice: Take what’s yours and run for you life.

Faith and doubt cannot reside together. An iota of doubt is enough to taint the entire process, it is like a drop of red ink in water.

and he said her name to fill the space of five years.

I was 12 when I got a small part in a movie in Texas. And in my spare time, I play with my dogs and write music and go out with my friends.

My wife drives the wrong way on a one way street. The cop pulled her over and asked, "Where are you going?" My wife said, "I must be late, everyone is all coming back!"

I would rather have gotten married than have a Hollywood contract.

You can't run the economy on BMWs alone. If the average person is in a pickle, how do you have a healthy economy?

Conversation is the image of the mind. As the man is, so is his talk.

When you feed the big dog, it does whatever you tell him to do.