Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

An easy-going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life.

Emulation is active virtue; envy is brooding malice.

Scandals are like dandelion seeds--they are arrow-headed, and stick where they fall, and bring forth and multiply fourfold.

Petty laws breed great crimes.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

Could we see when and where we are to meet again, we would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.

A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run.

The best kind of day is a writing day

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

When a denomination begins to consider doctrine divisive, theology troublesome, and convictions inconvenient, consider that denomination on its way to a well-deserved death.

I've reached a point in my life where going to the supermarket is a day out.

I've been an amature inventor for a long time.

One thing I've tried to do in writing music is take on very basic things, very archetypal things.

Hypocrisy is folly. It is much easier, safer, and pleasanter to be the thing which a man aims to appear, than to keep up the appearance of being what he is not.

I will never sign anything which makes me have to do more than one film.

One says that money doesn't buy happiness. Without a doubt, one was speaking of the money of others.

We don't have to look far for miracles because they're all around us. Everything is astonishing. The universe on it's surface is alive with mystery.