If a story is no good, being based on Hamlet won't save it.

The difference between being Achilles and almost being Achilles is the difference between living and dying.

Real people are made out of a whole lot of things—flesh, bone, blood, nerves, stuff like that. Literary people are made out of words.

The real reason for quest is always self-knowledge.

Every language has a grammar, a set of rules that govern usage and meaning, and literary language is no different. It’s all more or less arbitrary of course, just like language itself.

Reading is an activity of the imagination, and the imagination in question is not the writer's alone.

Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.

In order to remain undead, I must steal the life force of someone whose fate matters less to me than my own.' I've always supposed that Wall Street traders utter essentially the same sentence.

Please note, I am not suggesting that illicit drugs are required to break down social barriers.

Now, Joyce being Joyce, he has about five different purposes, one not being enough for genius.

Man is able to decide for or against reason, he is able to create beyond reason or to destroy below reason

Each man must look to himself to teach him the meaning of life. It is not something discovered: it is something molded.

Should graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that.

Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.

What I don't like in movies dealing with the illustration of altered states of consciousness is that usually you see the guy from the outside.

You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

But you can't just sit around the fireplace and sip Cokes and eat pretzels and get an attitude of confidence. You have to put in hard work.

Power in a corporation becomes residual and dwells in the background. It is the ability to exercise nice matters of judgment.

Who makes us ignorant? We ourselves. We put our hands over our eyes and weep that it is dark.

I was born in a suburb of Paris, and I grew up there until I was 16, so there were always a lot of barbecues, a garden, friends.