good and evil travel on the same road, but they leave different impressions.

Not to find pleasure in serious reading gives a pastel coloring to the mind.

There is no real evil in life, except great pain; all the rest is imaginary, and depends on the light in which we view things

The heart has no wrinkles.

We are never satisfied with having done well; and in endeavoring to do better, we do much worse.

If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification; time takes away as much as it gives.

When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it.

There are twelve hours in the day, and above fifty in the night.

I dislike clocks with second-hands; they cut up life into too small pieces.

I know of no sorrow greater than that occasioned by a delay of the post.

... we ought to be astonished at nothing; for what do we not meet with in our journey through life?

I think earning money is the simplest thing in the world once you learn how to do it

But the weakness comes from these Westernised co-opted Muslim leaders who just want to look good in the eyes of the West and Western media.

The first two chapters of any first draft generally need to be cut.

Oh, breathe not his name! let it sleep in the shade, Where cold and unhonour'd his relics are laid

It's not true that you fall in love only once in your life. But it is true that you only fall in love a certain way, with a certain absoluteness, once.

No, Groucho is not my real name. I am breaking it in for a friend.

Stories are hard. I have friends who knock out stories on a weekly or monthly basis, like they're running on medicinal-strength Updike. But for me a story is as daunting a prospect as a novel.

Because I have been lonely, I value love.

Farewell's a bitter word to say.

I think my films are always quite self-reflexive and always question 'why am I doing this, is this the right way to do it, what is cinema for, does it have a purpose?