The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

The Congo was the most difficult shoot of my life but was also maybe the greatest adventure of my life.

Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is actually no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.

Educators take something simple and make it complicated. Communicators take something complicated and make it simple.

Youth is to all the glad season of life; but often only by what it hopes, not by what it attains, or what it escapes.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

When it’s your time, it is your time.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Religion was instituted to make us happy in this life and in the other. What must we do to be happy in the life to come? Be just.

I realize I don’t do a very good job in keeping up to date, but I try to.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

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

We would like a stable policy framework, and whatever incentives and tax structures are there should be made known to investors upfront. There should be credibility, clarity and continuity in both policy formulation and its implementation.

The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

When you are an actor, you have to stay inside this world, but when you are with the crew, on the outside, you are in the dirt, working through all the issues. It’s just a different way of working, and I think I preferred it.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

I believe life is an intelligent thing: that things aren’t random.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

I tend to believe that audiences are relatively well-balanced people.

I think if we didn’t contradict ourselves, it would be awfully boring. It would be tedious to be alive.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Life is either a great adventure or nothing.

Respect is one of life’s greatest treasures. I mean, what does it all add up to if you don’t have that?

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

My theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

And were an epitaph to be my story I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Optimism means better than reality; pessimism means worse than reality. I’m a realist.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

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

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

A man must be both stupid and uncharitable who believes there is no virtue or truth but on his own side.

Absence and death are the same – only that in death there is no suffering.

Darn the wheel of the world! Why must it continually turn over? Where is the reverse gear?

Once someone has spent enough time cultivating bad habits and biding their time, they are much diminished. Much of what they could have been has dissipated.

Consider, when you are enraged at any one, what you would probably think if he should die during the dispute.

I work very hard, and I play very hard. I’m grateful for life. And I live it – I believe life loves the liver of it. I live it.

When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways – either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our inner strength. Thanks to the teachings of Buddha, I have been able to take this second way.

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.

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Those parts of history that would undermine the vision of the Left – which prevails in our education system from elementary school to postgraduate study – are not likely to get much attention.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

It’s a lot easier to stay idealistic if you don’t sign two to five next-of-kin letters every day.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Look at situations from all angles, and you will become more open.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

To not follow your passion in life is a recipe for failure and unhappiness.

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can’t make head nor tail out of it.