One's life, from being an exterior thing, grows inwards. Its intensity stays the same; and, d'you know, it's most mysterious, the corners in which the joy of living can sometimes hide away.

Humanity lives in its fiction.

Photogenic is a stupid, nonsensical word, but it is also a great mystery.

Only a soul full of despair can ever attain serenity and, to be in despair, you must have loved a good deal and still love the world.

The single fact of existing is already a true happiness.

I'm not an extraordinary worker, I'm an extraordinary daydreamer. I exceed all my fantasies-even that of writing.

A writer should never install himself before a panorama, however grandiose it may be.

Writing is a noble privilege compared with the lot of most people, who live like parts of a machine, who live only to keep the gears of society pointlessly turning.

Life The machine The human soul A 75mm breech My portrait

Without the help of selfishness, the human animal would never have developed. Egoism is the vine by which man hoisted himself out of the swamp and escaped from the jungle.

My poor life This shawl Frayed on strongboxes full of gold I roll along with Dream And smoke And the only flame in the universe

Beauty appears when something is completely and absolutely and openly itself.

Fate and family put me in charge of this city. I will run it my way.

It's YOUR health. Don't leave up to someone else.

If your kid doesn't have broadband access, that's a real disadvantage for participating in modern education.

For all men are equal at the moment of death and who are we to judge them when a much greater judge awaits?

Whatever title you want to lay on me is fine. I am still working; you know what I'm saying?

I think I've got Fear down, but how do I take it all the way up to Terror?

Keep the boss aware. Bosses, after all, are held responsible by their own bosses for the performance of their subordinates. They must be able to say: "I know what Anne [or John] is trying to do."

I am more convinced than ever that mindsets toward learning could matter more than anything else we teach.

You have no control over the hand that life deals you, but how you play that hand is entirely up to you.