I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

I’ve never understood why people consider youth a time of freedom and joy. It’s probably because they have forgotten their own.

I’ve found men are less likely to let petty things annoy them.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

Everything isn’t political.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

For me, money is not my definition of success. Inspiring people is a definition of success.

I used to tell my husband that, if he could make me ‚understand‘ something, it would be clear to all the other people in the country.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

When I write, it’s like choosing which shoes I’m going to put on. More often than not, my lyrics are personal – but I sometimes have to put myself in other people’s shoes.

I see the world in black and white, and I don’t like compromising.

You know, people talk about this being an uncertain time. You know, all time is uncertain. I mean, it was uncertain back in – in 2007, we just didn’t know it was uncertain. It was – uncertain on September 10th, 2001. It was uncertain on October 18th, 1987, you just didn’t know it.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

Life is our dictionary.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

I don’t pretend to understand the Universe – it’s a great deal bigger than I am.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

I’ll tell you one thing, since I’m married, single people look absolutely ridiculous to me.

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

I’ve never considered musical equipment very sacred.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.

You will always have partial points of view, and you’ll always have the story behind the story that hasn’t come out yet. And any form of journalism you’re involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

If everything isn’t black and white, I say, ‚Why the hell not?‘

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Our experience of any painting is always the latest line in a long conversation we’ve been having with painting. There’s no way of looking at art as though you hadn’t seen art before.

At first when I heard about climate change, I was a climate denier. I didn’t think it was happening. Because if there really was an existential crisis like that, that would threaten our civilisation, we wouldn’t be focusing on anything else. That would be our first priority. So I didn’t understand how that added up.

My father probably thought the capital of the world was wherever he was at the time. It couldn’t possibly be anyplace else. Where he and his wife were in their own home, that, for them, was the capital of the world.

If you see everything from the point of view of women being victims in some way, you don’t see the wood for the trees. It is better to be a person than a woman.

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

Heaven is dumb, echoing only the dumb.

Being ‚contented‘ ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

I grew up with the biologists. I know how they think.

I believe everyone should have a broad picture of how the universe operates and our place in it. It is a basic human desire. And it also puts our worries in perspective.

How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

Wealth is not his that has it, but his that enjoys it.

Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.