The curse of me and my nation is that we always think things can be bettered by immediate action of some sort, any sort rather than no sort.

The act of bell ringing is symbolic of all proselytizing religions. It implies the pointless interference with the quiet of other people.

The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

Colloquial poetry is to the real art as the barber's wax dummy is to sculpture.

The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain, When the hot water gives out or goes tepid, So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion, O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

The ant's a centaur in his dragon world.

All great art is born of the metropolis.

'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting, bid the world's hounds come to horn!

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it.

They pick a president and then for four years they pick on him.

I like good stories. Quality products and character are what's important. Even if the script isn't that strong, if I challenge myself with a great character, I'll go for it.

I genuinely believe that everything happens for a reason.

It's always tempting to do good at someone else's expense

The iPhone revolutionised the mobile industry, rather like the iPod before it with the personal music player.

I was good at being a doctor; my patients liked me. At times people trust you with things they wouldn't tell their spouses. It was a real privilege.

This whole world is run by brutes for the common and the stupid.

Two elements are needed to form a truth - a fact and an abstraction

There are days when I'm alone with my thoughts, which is to say, not alone enough.

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border of Afghanistan, I wrote to President Jimmy Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.