We only see clearly when we have reached the depths of woe.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

An easy-going husband is the one indispensable comfort of life.

Emulation is active virtue; envy is brooding malice.

Scandals are like dandelion seeds--they are arrow-headed, and stick where they fall, and bring forth and multiply fourfold.

Petty laws breed great crimes.

Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others.

Could we see when and where we are to meet again, we would be more tender when we bid our friends goodbye.

Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds.

I do not wish to be a coward like the father of mankind and throw the blame upon a woman.

Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.

Ordinary people seem to not like me. They tend to think that I’m a little weird.

There is so much oil now in the Gulf of Mexico, and you can thank the folks of British Petroleum for this, so much oil in the Gulf, you can now park on it.

We are not going to play them; they are going to play us.

As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in tomorrow.

I am a sort of vampire, taking the blood of other people.

Of course there must be the urge, the indefinable longing to get something through into terms of plastic presentation, but results are nearly always unpredictable.

Yeah, because I think it's more important just to inspire people to wake up one day and pick up a book and start feeling it out for themselves.

Make room, Roman writers, make room for Greek writers; something greater than the Iliad is born.

Not being known doesn't stop the truth from being true.

Once I started getting mainstream people to my shows, I realized we were taking too many solos, and they were too long. I started gauging when people were going on their iPhones.