When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

There is a strange and mighty race of people called the Americans who are rapidly becoming the coldest in the world because of this cruel, man-eating idol, lucre.

[Shanghai Biennale] has been my attitude for as long as I've been practicing art and other cultural-related activities.

I hate elevators. I'm claustrophobic so for me to be in an elevator or small spaces is probably the worst thing on earth.

My wife is the fact-checker, I'm in the story telling business.

I used to say of him that his presence on the field made the difference of forty thousand men.

It is more important to prevent animal suffering, rather than sit to contemplate the evils of the universe praying in the company of priests.

The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness.

I live in Paris but I feel I am a daughter of Europe.

There is no such thing as a wrong note ... just as long as you're singing along.

We cannot hope to bring about effective change unless we are willing to BE changed.

It has absolutely no meaning to me to be an executive producer on a film that I have nothing to do with except come to the wrap party or the premiere on; it's just meaningless.