It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate.

Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.

The idea of seeing the sea - of being near it - watching its changes by sunrise, sunset, moonlight, and noonday - in calm, perhaps in storm - fills and satisfies my mind.

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

Oh madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!

Good-night, my-" He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me.

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will.

The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed.

Better to be without logic than without feeling.

God did not give me my life to throw it away.

What you want to ignite in others must first burn inside yourself.

The greatest violence, and the greatest threat to humanity, is the growth of MONEY.

What women do in front of a mirror with few brushes and colors is, indeed, an art.

A house is your third skin, after the skin made of flesh and clothing.

The hunger inside us must be fed to be controlled.

Of course, I'm not allowed to talk about the script, but I can say it is a really good story.

I generally have lyrics first, but you can't help that when you're writing lyrics you start to get a melody in your head. So they come kind of simultaneously.

I did my homework and didn't go out much, and had a very highly developed kitsch fantasy life where I dreamed of being a dancing girl.

If vitality gives a man's perspectives color, if community bonds give them breadth, if awareness of the land makes them realistic, a deep sense of loyalty gives them personal meaning and integrity.

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

I don't listen to anyone else. That's why I don't have a publicist or something like that. I can't stand it if someone's trying to tell me to do something which might be a mistake sometimes.