The notion of evil for its own sake strikes me as boring -- all these Dark Lords intent on creating wastelands packed with enslaved victims... for what?

The heart of wisdom is tolerance.

Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.

You must dismantle your sources, lest you do nothing but ape the prejudices of others

And over it all, the butterflies swarmed, like a million yellow-pettalled flowers dancing on swirling winds.

Children are dying." Lull nodded. "That's a succinct summary of humankind, I'd say. Who needs tomes and volumes of history? Children are dying. The injustices of the world hide in those three words.

Your brain works with all the subtlety of a malicious child.

And in the city on all sides, the howling of the Hounds rose in an ear-shattering, soul-flailing crescendo. The Lord of Death had arrived, to walk the streets in the City of Blue Fire.

For we are all bound in stories, and as the years pile up they turn to stone, layer upon layer, building our lives.

No purer artist exists or has ever existed than a child freed to imagine.

You are very easily exasperated, my dear. If you're a leaf trembling on a wide, deep river, relax and ride the current. It's always worked for me, I assure you.

Nothing is whole, not for too damned long. The world is half night.

The visual architecture of 'Biutiful' is the most sophisticated of all the films I have directed.

Inside many of us is a small old man who wants to get out.

I refuse to make uninspired music.

Part of my gestalt is that I still feel a little bit like a wallflower. Even in my own life. I talk about myself behind my back.

In my experience, writing a novel tends to create its own structure, its own demands, its own language, its own ending.

Go forward with joyful confidence.

Use your energy for good and it will be replenished with more good energy, use you energy for bad and your energy will be drained.

If at first you don't succeed, that's one data point.

Many of the white people [who] have been instruments in the hands of God for our good, even such as have held us in captivity, are now pleading our cause with earnestness and zeal.