What would a narrative of happiness be like? All that can be described is what prepares it, and then what destroys it.

Rather than recount his life as he has lived it, he must live his life as he will recount it.

Nothing thwarts happiness so much as the memory of happiness.

Poverty makes a slave out of men. In order to eat he will accept work that gives no pleasure.

An entire lifetime can change in one afternoon. The rest of the world can continue on, unaware of a quiet, solitary cataclysm occurring a few feet away.

When you slice the truth too thin, you deceive.

Everything under heaven is in utter chaos

As to honor - you know - it's a very fine mediaeval inheritance which women never got hold of. It wasn't theirs.

A liberal conservative is a man who thinks things ought to progress but would rather they remained as they are.

Do what gives you bliss.

I think the world that I grew up in was like being in this sort of magical artistic garden.

Un croquis vaut mieux qu

When I look at my longterm goals for the rest of my life, there are so many things other than performing that make me happy.

To play safe, I prefer to accept only one type of power: the power of art over trash, the triumph of magic over the brute.