Nothing is more fleeting than external form, which withers and alters like the flowers of the field at the appearance of autumn.

When men stop believing in God, it isn't that they then believe in nothing: they believe in everything.

If you interact with things in your life, everything is constantly changing. And if nothing changes, you're an idiot.

I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

Absence is to love as wind is to fire: it extinguishes the little flame, it fans the big.

There are four types: the cretin, the imbecile, the stupid and the mad. Normality is a balanced mixture of all four.

I love the smell of book ink in the morning.

To survive, you must tell stories.

But Italy is not an intellectual country. On the subway in Tokyo everybody reads. In Italy, they don't. Don't evaluate Italy from the fact that it produced Raphael and Michelangelo.

Poetry is not a matter of feelings, it is a matter of language. It is language which creates feelings.

We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

I've never missed a gig yet. Music makes people happy, and that's why I go on doing it - I like to see everybody smile.

The gun legislation was doomed the minute it became associated with the words common sense.

You have to prove your success in order to grow.

It's just that I've learned that somebody's appearance doesn't always match what's going on inside him. You can't look at a guy's face and see his demons.

The idea of "karma" reeks of primitive religious superstition, so I don't place a lot of stock in it.

The method of collective punishment so far has proved effective.

Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy.

I can never remember what I do even in the studio.

We only have ten years to save the oceans