The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see.

To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.

Women have a certain sexuality, and I think their bodies are beautiful, and I’m not embarrassed to explore that in a film. But there are things you get offered that are vulgar and violent – just like there’s a side of me that’s vulgar and violent.

I’ve been to Uganda and to North Korea and to Eritrea, countless horror spots around the world.

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.

There’s no one thing that is true. They’re all true.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

I have nothing to ask but that you would remove to the other side, that you may not, by intercepting the sunshine, take from me what you cannot give.

I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There’s just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

I got into science fiction by being interested in astronomy first.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

Life is like a wheel. Sooner or later, it always come around to where you started again.

A trifle consoles us, for a trifle distresses us.

The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can’t make anybody believe that he has it.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

The close Turkish-Israeli relations go back to the late 1950s – military intelligence, commercial, more recently, tourism and cultural relations.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.

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

When I’m home, I spend Sunday with my husband. If we’re not cooking, we travel around in our camper, stop at fast-food restaurants, and picnic. We love that stuff that will harden your arteries in a hurry.

The Edge… there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

It is not length of life, but depth of life.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

Anywhere I go, there is always an incredible crowd that follows me. In Rome, as I land at the airport, even the men kiss me. I love Rome.

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it.

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

I think everyone should approach relationships from the perspective of playing it straight and giving someone the benefit of the doubt. Until he establishes that this is a game. And if it’s a game, you need to win. The best thing to do is just walk away from the table.

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.

What is normal? Normal was yesterday. If you lose a leg, one day you’re hopping around on one leg, so you know the difference.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

When I was a boy we didn’t wake up with Vietnam and have Cyprus for lunch and the Congo for dinner.

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t spend a whole lot of time following soccer. But as I have traveled around the world to better understand global development and health, I’ve learned that soccer is truly universal. No matter where I go, that’s what kids are playing. That’s what people are talking about.

The way up and the way down are one and the same.

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

Anyone who doesn’t have a great time in San Francisco is pretty much dead to me.

I’ve always been a bit of a gypsy.

Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self.

I’ll stay in Memphis.

Go up in an airplane. Go high enough, and it’s like we don’t even exist.

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childhood days, recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the traveler back to his own fireside and quiet home!

What one fool can understand, another can.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.

I try to look on all the great things God’s done, and not focus on the negative. It’s a perspective.

Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Now, you lose something in your life, or you come into a conflict, and there’s gonna come a time that you’re gonna know: There was a reason for that. And at the end of your life, all the things you thought were periods, they turn out to be commas. There was never a full stop in any of it.

I actually feel like women in my position, when we have all at our disposal to help us, shouldn’t complain when we consider all of the people who are really struggling and don’t have the means or support. Many people are single, raising children. That’s hard.

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

It’s possible – you can never know – that the universe exists only for me. If so, it’s sure going well for me, I must admit.