Originality and the feeling of one's own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.

The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.

Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.

The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!

The soul is healed by being with children.

It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.

But how could you live and have no story to tell?

If you want to be respected by others, the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.

I have a really close relationship with God. I have more conversations with God, and it's very therapeutic to me. It helps me through a lot of trials and tribulations.

I've never been a passive person. I've always felt that, if you think something should be changed, it's your responsibility to actively pursue that change.

Sometimes I've felt that the industry has typecast me as a certain kind of character. But then I think all it really takes is one role, the right role, to shake that up and change that perception.

I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life.

The challenge is always as a writer, is this going to work, because it's a very intimate process, and I tend to be very introverted and insular, and when I write, it's in my head.

You can’t let your current circumstances dictate what kind of choices you make.

The grand stye arises in poetry, when a noble nature, poetically gifted, treats with simplicity or with severity a serious subject.

When I was working with Stanley Kubrick [on "Eyes Wide Shut"], he would always say, "You never tell the audience what to feel. Let them choose to have their responses."

I think the pop industry is still a young man's game.

I've been speaking at churches for years, as well as juvenile jails, rehabs and hospitals, and I always talk about my faith. That is a declaration of my relationship with God