Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

It’s normal for human beings to identify with their own separate self. The problem is that we get caught in that notion of ourself as a separate individual and caught in that individual self’s agenda.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

I don’t write so much now. I’m getting on 33, pot belly and creeping dementia.

Well, I’m in my 60s now. I finally look it, I think. People until I was 60 would always say they thought I looked younger, which I think, without flattering myself, I did, but I think I certainly have, as George Orwell says people do after a certain age, the face they deserve.

Being is the great explainer.

The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks.

The art is long, life is short.

We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork, you must make a decision.

I don’t suffer of anything that I’ve lost.

It is only to the individual that a soul is given.

O, had I but followed the arts!

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

The primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid; the state of being alone.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

Even in the 1950s, President Eisenhower was concerned about what he called a campaign of hatred of the U.S. in the Arab world, because of the perception on the Arab street that it supported harsh and oppressive regimes to take their oil.

Little girls are cute and small only to adults. To one another they are not cute. They are life-sized.

Nothing is so intolerable to man as being fully at rest, without a passion, without business, without entertainment, without care.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Fondly we think we honor merit then, When we but praise ourselves in other men.

When Clark Gable died, I cried for 2 days straight. I couldn’t eat or sleep.

I don’t think anything about a personal legacy. I mean, those words would never come out of my mouth unless I just repeated them. Those things have never been important to me.

You should read history and look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of thing. They always happen to the best men, you know.

It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewere, would much rather you weren’t doing.

I was sure I’d set the world on fire, and it was hard for a young feller like me to realize the truth – that I hadn’t set the world on fire, and I was totally unprepared to handle the consequences if ‚The Big Trail‘ had been a success and launched me as a star.

I tended to place my wife under a pedestal.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.

Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

I don’t want to be alone, I want to be left alone.

For an author, the nice characters aren’t much fun. What you want are the screwed up characters. You know, the characters that are constantly wondering if what they are doing is the right thing, characters that are not only screwed up but are self-tapping screws. They’re doing it for themselves.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

There are women who can make you feel more with their bodies and their souls, but these are the exact women who will turn the knife into you right in front of the crowd. Of course, I expect this, but the knife still cuts.

I often wake up in the night, and I like to have something to think about.

I sometimes think that the price of liberty is not so much eternal vigilance as eternal dirt.

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

Pretension is a poor joke that you play on yourself. Snap out of it. Recognise your strengths, work on your weaknesses. Real achievement is liking what you see in the mirror every morning.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Whatsoever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and whatsoever is contrary to reason is absurd.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

A game is like a mirror that allows you to look at yourself.

Some men do think I’m a psycho bunny-boiler.

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Men take only their needs into consideration – never their abilities.

There is nothing so stable as change.

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

One may have a blazing hearth in one’s soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

Don’t despair, not even over the fact that you don’t despair.