A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Will and intellect are one and the same thing.

No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.

Fiction is not necessarily about what you know, it’s about how you feel. That is the truth about fiction, and the other truth is that all science is a tool, and we use our tools not to actualise what we know, but to implement how we feel.

I’d rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

The thing about fantasy – there are certain things you just don’t do in fantasy.

I am not The Rock. I am Dwayne Johnson.

Why shouldn’t truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense.

In heaven an angel is nobody in particular.

Jesus isn’t lettin‘ you off the hook. The Scriptures don’t let you off the hook so easily… When people say, you know, ‚Good teacher‘, ‚Prophet‘, ‚Really nice guy‘ … this is not how Jesus thought of Himself.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

I’m Mickey Mouse. They don’t know who’s inside the suit.

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

I like to make people feel happy and superior in their reaction towards my appearance.

I don’t care if you get up in the morning and don’t wash, don’t put any make-up on, don’t do your hair, even, but you have to have clothes if you want to look different.

What good is it being Marilyn Monroe? Why can’t I just be an ordinary woman?

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

I’m half-black, half-white, so I basically put it like this: I can fit in anywhere. That’s why I write so many stories from so many different perspectives, because I’ve seen so many.

The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986. I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Well, we’re living in a material world, and I’m a material girl… or boy.

The work is the work. The work is not me.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m as famous for my wheelchair and disabilities as I am for my discoveries.

The kind of fiction I’m trying to write is about telling the truth.

Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

I wear the national dress because it is the most natural and the most becoming for an Indian.

Bob Marley isn’t my name. I don’t even know my name yet.

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

People – especially white people – they want me to be a role model just because of the life I lead. The things I say in my songs, they expect it of me.

Such as we are made of, such we be.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.

We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man.

I haven’t changed at all. I’m the same as when I was 11.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

The only person who ever called me Paul was my father, so I always associate it with doing something wrong, you know. So, you know, occasionally, people will come up to me on the street and try to, you know, ingratiate themselves and call me Paul. I don’t like it, actually.

You don’t carry in your countenance a letter of recommendation.

I just dress like… I’m an old black man. Sorry! Like I’m an old Jewish black man. I just dress like it’s still the ’50s.

It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

Why am I a star? It can’t be because of looks.

I’m German in my mind, but from a Germany that doesn’t exist any more.

People can try to reinvent themselves. I don’t think you can really change who you are, though, because who you are is pretty much where you came from and what you’ve done up to now.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Everyone, no doubt, remains first and foremost a man of his own country and continues to draw from it his motive force.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

Beauty is all very well at first sight; but who ever looks at it when it has been in the house three days?

This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he’s Frank and in Chicago he’s Ernest.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.