Luck is blind, they say. It can’t see where it’s going and keeps running into people…and the people it knocks into we call lucky! Well, to hell with luck if it's like that, I say!

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

You can knock on a deaf man's door forever.

If a woman sleeps alone it puts a shame on all men. God has a very big heart, but there is one sin He will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed and he will not go.

The human soul is heavy, clumsy, held in the mud of the flesh. Its perceptions are still coarse and brutish. It can divine nothing clearly, nothing with certainty.

How could I, who loved life so intensely, have let myself be entangled for so long in that balderdash of books and paper blackened with ink!

Every man has his folly, but the greatest folly of all, in my view, is not to have one.

Tell me what you do with the food you eat, and I’ll tell you who you are. Some turn their food into fat and manure, some into work and good humor, and others, I’m told, into God.” - Zorba.

When you've made up your mind, no use lagging behind, go ahead and no relenting, Let your youth have free reign, it won't come again, so be bold and no repenting.

You have everything but one thing: madness. A man needs a little madness or else - he never dares cut the rope and be free.

Leave nothing for death but a burned-out castle

I have learned to smile when I wasn't happy, to sing when I didn't feel like it, and to do things just to please my fans.

There is nothing like wealth for dulling desire.

I've always wanted the sound of Muddy Waters' early records - only louder

That's how we stay young these days: murder and suicide.

The blues will be blue, and the jealousies green, but when love picks its color it demands to be seen.

You don't want to be too cool. But you don't want to be too dorky. Still, I find it so much better to see a guy at a club being a dork, and having fun, than trying to be sexy.

This is an area where North Carolina does excel. I have known more colorful North Carolina political figures than I have colorless ones.

Be warned in time, James, and remain, as I do, incomprehensible: to be great is to be misunderstood.

It's not hard being great occasionally. It's difficult to be good consistently.

Learn to say no in situations where saying no can be difficult, where it could mean getting fired. Say no anyway, because it could lead you to greater opportunities.