The complex develops out of the simple.

The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it.

The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain.

A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.

The complex develops out of the simple.

Being very famous is not the fun it sounds. It merely means you're being chased by a lot of people and you lose your privacy.

Criminals interest me, because they're driven by the same desires as we are, but they take these disastrous shortcuts and end up in a real mess.

I'm basically a writer of ideas, and the English aren't interested in ideas. The English, I'm afraid, are totally brainless.

I've always been a pretty hard worker. That's how I've written over a hundred books.

If I'd stayed on in London and carried on going to literary parties, it would have wrecked me as a writer.

If you asked me what is the basis of all my work, it's the feeling there's something basically wrong with human beings.

What I wanted to do was to try to create a philosophy upon a completely new foundation.

When I was a teenager I was a total romantic escapist. My world was books.

Whereas in the past optimism had been regarded as rather shallow - because 'oh well, it's just your temperament, you happen to be just a cheerful sort of person' - what I wanted to do was to establish that in fact it is the pessimists who are allowing all kinds of errors to creep into their work.

Imagination should be used not to escape reality but to create it.

The exploration of oneself is usually also an exploration of the world at large of other writers a process of comparison with oneself with others discoveries of kinships gradual illumination of ones own potentialities.

The mystical impulse in men is somehow a desire to possess the universe. In women, it's a desire to be possessed.

This is one of the hardest industries to be married.

David Anspaugh, who was my first director, on 'Rudy,' was all about empowering the actor, making you feel comfortable and appreciated, allowing you to keep your dignity, and treating you like a man. Being treated like a grown-up makes you proud to be involved in a film.

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.

Dont let the negativity given to you by the world disempower you. Instead give to yourself that which empowers you.

My older sister is bossy, my brother is a stirrer and me - well, I am perfect!

You have to maintain the balance between fast growth and smooth growth. It's like driving a car and knowing when to balance the gas pedal and the brake.

You can't tell an 18-year-old to keep it down and turn off Britney Spears or whatever it is that they listen to.

Every election is determined by the people who show up.

In all things give thanks.

Researching real people and doing them, I think, is harder than anything else. You don't want to do a caricature of them and you don't want to do an impression. You just want to do the best you can, in terms of presenting their views and a general impression of the guy. That's the hardest thing to do, real people.

The best thing an actor can be is ready. Be flexible, be ready.

It is the awareness of unfulfilled desires which gives a nation the feeling that it has a mission and a destiny.

Most companies that are great at something - like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores - do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us) because they are afraid to hurt their initial business.

Every day, we hear that somebody got saved to our music from all over the world. The music reaches people. It can encourage them. I feel like I have to do it because there's somebody out there who needs to hear the gospel.

I didn't devote my life to acting. I give a lot to my work, but my life has always been more important.

Men are accomplices to that which leaves them indifferent.

If you don't know where you make your mistakes, that's your worst mistake: not knowing where your mistakes are at.

By laughing at me, the audience really laughs at themselves, and realizing they have done this gives them sort of a spiritual second wind for going back into the battles of life.

Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door.

As a close-up magician, I was using gambling cheating techniques.

When one neighbor helps another, we strengthen our communities.

Books seem so much more - much more sacred to me, and more important and essential, than they were when I was young.

I love the 3D revolution. I love the technology today that continues to push the envelope, continues break the new ground, and continues to raise the bar.

If you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much room.