I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

No one has the right to be sorry for himself for a misfortune that strikes everyone.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn’t think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.

I think what’s important is for us to decipher what is honest and what is dishonest and be accepting of those things and not operating from fear.

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.

Writing and cafes are strongly linked in my brain.

Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer. Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Either you run the day or the day runs you.

Sometimes, I want to talk on a song and be angry, because I am angry. Then there’s always a part of me that remembers that this record lives past my being angry, and so do I really want to be angry about that? Is that feeling going to have longevity?

Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.

I am invariably late for appointments – sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.

I see drawings and pictures in the poorest of huts and the dirtiest of corners.

Genres aren’t closed boxes. Stuff flows back and forth across the borders all the time.

Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.

Everybody thinks making films back to back is a big deal but they did it all the time in the old days.

I didn’t want to be a writer, but I became one. And now I have many readers, in many countries. I think that’s a miracle. So I think I have to be humble regarding this ability. I’m proud of it and I enjoy it, and it is strange to say it this way, but I respect it.

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit.

I have trouble with letting go. That’s my problem.

I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create.

The most challenging project I’ve ever done, I think, is every single thing I’ve ever tried to do. It’s never easy.

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist.

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.

A man must now swallow more belief than he can digest.

Be careless in your dress if you must, but keep a tidy soul.

I don’t have emotional needs, only physical ones.

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

‚Worry‘ is a word that I don’t allow myself to use.

What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.

I’ve lived a very colorful life, and I’ve said some things, But not once have I taken them back, and I’ve never apologized for them – and I won’t.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

There, in the chords and melodies, is everything I want to say. The words just jolly it along. It’s always been my way of expressing what, for me, is inexpressible by any other means.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

I had nothing growing up, but I always wanted to be ‚sexy,‘ even before I knew what the word was.

Apply yourself both now and in the next life. Without effort, you cannot be prosperous. Though the land be good, You cannot have an abundant crop without cultivation.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.

If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.

I no have education. I have inspiration. If I was educated, I would be a damn fool.

I mean… in life… what relationship is easy?

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Although I don’t have a prescription for what others should do, I know I have been very fortunate and feel a responsibility to give back to society in a very significant way.

Well, I wouldn’t say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.

I’ve had a fan who made a painting of my face with her fingers. I have put it up in my room. It was sweet and very different.

I never hold a grudge.

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way.

Art’s everything we hope life would be, a lot of times.

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

I like to choreograph and create and design the costumes and do it all and then step back and watch it and then move on to the next project.

Relish everything that’s inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

Fear? If I have gained anything by damning myself, it is that I no longer have anything to fear.

I want you to be everything that’s you, deep at the center of your being.

There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us.