A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

I don’t care if people think I am an overactor, as long as they enjoy what I do. People who think that would call Van Gogh an overpainter.

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.

When I was in high school, there were these British blues-rock-type bands with really good guitar players that would jam on one song for half an hour. And as much as I was amazed by some of those guitar players, seeing them prompted me to make a note that that’s not something I could do.

Our judgments when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

I would venture to guess that the biggest reason creative types don’t produce isn’t because they don’t have vision… or talent… in most cases, it’s a lack of discipline.

If we had a keen vision of all that is ordinary in human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which is the other side of silence.

I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.

I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred.

If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.

High office teaches decision making, not substance. It consumes intellectual capital; it does not create it. Most high officials leave office with the perceptions and insights with which they entered; they learn how to make decisions but not what decisions to make.

Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.

There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.

I grew up in a rural area called Vega Baja and I’m the first of so many talented people in this area to make it out. I take great pride to represent where I come from and I am able to show my fans, and everyone who listens and watches me, that anything is possible.

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put something before us to prevent us seeing it.

It takes a smart man to play dumb.

Talent is something that comes from within; it has nothing to do with age.

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which, before their union, were not perceived to have any relation.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

I am very happy playing and showing off my talent on the cricket field and have no plans to enter Bollywood.

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.

Genius, when young, is divine.

I just was never into performing. It’s just hard work. It’s hard work.

People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think.

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

Our mind is capable of passing beyond the dividing line we have drawn for it. Beyond the pairs of opposites of which the world consists, other, new insights begin.

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent.

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Above everything else I’ve done, I’ve always said I’ve had more guts than I’ve got talent.

It was one of those evenings when men feel that truth, goodness and beauty are one. In the morning, when they commit their discovery to paper, when others read it written there, it looks wholly ridiculous.

When we recognise the virtues, the talent, the beauty of Mother Earth, something is born in us, some kind of connection, love is born.

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia – to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

People like to build their own story about my life. I don’t know if it makes them feel better, or if it makes it okay for them to not like me, but the last thing I grew up as was rich.

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

The long time to come when I shall not exist has more effect on me than this short present time, which nevertheless seems endless.

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

People take the little bit of information they’re fed, and they draw a picture of who you are. Most of the time, it’s wrong.

No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

If God dropped acid, would he see people?

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

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.

If I close my eyes and think of Hollywood, all I see is one big varicose vein.

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.

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.