We seldom speak of what we have but often of what we lack.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.

The majority of men... are not capable of thinking, but only of believing, and... are not accessible to reason, but only to authority.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.

Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.

Genius and madness have something in common: both live in a world that is different from that which exists for everyone else.

A pessimist is an optimist in full possession of the facts.

Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine.

Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

Some of the snowballs have a kind of animal energy. Not just because of the materials inside them, but in the way that they appear caged, captured.

Satan never wastes a fiery dart by aiming at a spot covered by armor. The bull's eye is located dead center in our inconsistency. That's where the enemy plans to bring us down.

It's much harder to play beloved than to play a rotten guy. Rotten guy is a piece of cake. So playing a beloved person really sets a high bar for your behavior and your acting and what you project.

I'm ultimately satisfied that we know a little bit more about how the world really works.

You can make something of your life, it just depends on your drive.

I live my life by the numbers. Not only am I an American, I am an Americanist.

...beauty, she had discovered occupied a narrow band. Ugliness, on the hand, had infinite variation.

At restaurants, I carry paper and markers and tell everyone to draw a picture with a unicorn, an octopus and an explosion. That keeps kids still for a minute.

If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed.

And if you are playing in several meters at once, there has to be a - not a rigid - but there definitely has to be a reference to a common pulse in the band.