I think it’s a myth that American public or any other public is so stupid that they need to be constantly pricked.

If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty, and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly than aesthetics will see its moral lesson. It will fill the cowardly with terror, and the unclean will see in it their own shame.

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

I don’t think the Christian Right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do.

Plato was a bore.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.

Things ain’t what they used to be and never were.

Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

There is no unique picture of reality.

It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

I don’t care if people I admire criticize me because their opinion is valuable to me.

I think I’m pretty smart. I think I’m pretty clever. But there’s a lot that you hone in on when you finish your education.

I think the American people, with some justification, think that most politicians live in la-la land.

I always believe that there should come a time when your energy, speed, stamina should combine well with your brains.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head.

I’m not really concerned with portraying this tough warrior – I mean, that’s part of my job and I take that very seriously. But I don’t have anything to hide, and I’m not concerned with what people think.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

Critics only make you stronger. You have to look at what they are saying as feedback. Sometimes the feedback helps, and other times, it’s just noise that can be a distraction.

Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called ‚walking.‘

The world is never quiet, even its silence eternally resounds with the same notes, in vibrations which escape our ears. As for those that we perceive, they carry sounds to us, occasionally a chord, never a melody.

The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.

It’s only I have seen enough of it and the funny thing is now, I know that I’m skinny, because I know there are even smaller clothes in the store. I think I’m big, when I was big, I never thought about it.

Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act.

I wouldn’t put myself forward to do a film like ‚Changeling‘ if I thought I couldn’t pull people into a story because of all the other ways people see me.

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

No accurate thinker will judge another person by that which the other person’s enemies say about him.

It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.

‚Tis strange what a man may do, and a woman yet think him an angel.

The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him.

People tried to change my concept of what music is. That music is work, but it’s not like that.

A critic should be taught to criticise a work of art without making any reference to the personality of the author.

It seems that when you have cancer you are a brave battler against the disease, but when you have Alzheimer’s you are an old fart. That’s how people see you. It makes you feel quite alone.

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.

What I think is fair to say is that, coming out of the Republican camp, there have been efforts to suggest that perhaps I’m not who I say I am when it comes to my faith – something which I find deeply offensive, and that has been going on for a pretty long time.

What ‚multiculturalism‘ boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture – and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

If one plays good music, people don’t listen and if one plays bad music people don’t talk.

Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.

All that we call ideal in Greek or any other art, because to us it is false and visionary, was, to the makers of it, true and existent.

My mother’s love has always been a sustaining force for our family, and one of my greatest joys is seeing her integrity, her compassion, her intelligence reflected in my daughters.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

I have to be seen to be believed.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

I’ve had big record label presidents look me in the face and say, ‚Your music sucks, you don’t know who you are, your music is all over the place, and we don’t know how to market this stuff. Pick a lane and come back to us.‘

For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.