Seeing through is rarely seeing into.

Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.

Irony is the hygiene of the mind.

We often call a certainty a hope, to bring it luck.

To others we are not ourselves but performers in their lives cast for a part we do not even know we are playing.

Seeing through is rarely seeing into.

It is sometimes the man who opens the door who is the last to enter the room.

A man who is available for lunch, has no wife, is interested in everything, and talks well is socially invaluable.

All my life, I have loved balloons - all balloons - the heavy English sort, immense and round, that have to be pushed about, and the gay, light, gas-filled French ones that soar into the air the moment you let go of them.

Can one end anything? A chapter, a paragraph, a sentence even? Doesn't everything one has ever done go on living in spite of subsequent events?

Friendship is a difficult, dangerous job. It is also (though we rarely admit it) extremely exhausting.

Happiness is a light, an atmosphere, an illumination. It sets a personality. I always feel that it is a creation that is difficult for some and easy for others, but essentially an achievement, never an accident.

I do not know at what moment in life, if ever, we realise that we are neither George Sands nor Juliets. Of course, if we are not beautiful, we recognise early that beauty is nothing.

Isn't that what love means, to fill ordinary, commonplace, conventional things with magic and significance, not to need the moon and white scent-heavy flowers at night?

It is better not to sit on the grass after thirty when sprawling at all is difficult, let alone sprawling gracefully.

Oh, youth is a wicked, cruel thing - eating miracles with its breakfast and not knowing they are not porridge.

Only the artists interest me whose hearts beat in unison with the poignant misery of the world. If you have not felt that, you have not lived. Pity is essential.

Passion is no respecter of persons. She hardly seems to select her victims.

The half-hour of crowded anticipation, how fully it pays for the sterile hour that follows!

The only thing that matters is to have charm and expression. Then comes that horrible gnawing doubt of our own magnetism. Is it possible that, though we are not lovely, we are not irresistible either? That we will have to go through life belonging neither to the triumphantly beautiful nor to the triumphantly ugly?

There is nothing in the world like health. Live cleanly, and the high thinking will look after itself - or at least won't matter. Physical condition - there's nothing like it.

There is something very independent about French balloons - you feel you couldn't make a pet of one.

To some people, the impossible is impossible. One fine day, they wake up in the morning knowing that they will never hold the moon in their hands, and with the certainty, perfect peace descends on them.

What an uncertain thing, marriage - what an elusive thing, happiness!

What is it one yearns for? It is to be able to do a thing for the first time again. And that is impossible.

What you possess is not what you jingle in the pockets of your memory, but the imaginings with which you fill the spaces of the future.

Why don't people take the trouble to let you know that they are alive? It is so much more important. The whole system is wrong. No sooner do I die, than all the flowers I have ever longed for in life pour in.

We often call a certainty a hope to bring it luck.

Entertaining is one method of avoiding people. It is very often the negation of hospitality.

Endurance is frequently a form of indecision.

He is invariably in a hurry. Being in a hurry is one of the tributes he pays to life.

You learn if you mind stay open. And once you can't learn no more, your mind must be closed. Life goes on and you keep growing, you know?

The word 'superficial' comes with such negative connotations, suggesting that whatever it is applied to has no value. But the emotional pull of beauty for its own sake cannot be underestimated.

I have felt terribly from the beginning when I saw the problems and recognized that they would be ongoing. We were hired to put back the contours of the greens as closely as possible to George Thomas's designs and were real proud of what we did. It's a sad situation now.

The most futuristic aspect of the House of the Future was that it was made almost entirely of plastic.

Every three or four shows, we have somebody that will come up onstage and propose marriage.

Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.

I've tried many other hairstyles, but it just doesn't work.

I learned a lot from working with and watching Knxwledge, seeing how he produces non-stop. He doesn't dwell too long on stuff. He's very simple, using only about two or three elements. I like that in production. Sometimes it doesn't take more than three drums, a melody, the vocal, looping a sample or whatever, just as minimal as possible.

For me, I'd rather have an intense experience than not.

But what I think my emphasis is, is on the fact that I like music a lot.

You can't exactly bake a man to your specifications. Most of all, one shouldn't alienate a candidate. A hybrid of Einstein, Tarzan and Inge Meysel doesn't exist. Besides, the images of politicians in the media aren't always accurate. I've had my share of experiences in that regard.

Most of the groups I worked with 30 years ago are either dead or dead broke. And it's a shame.

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.

What sets 'Some Nights' apart from anything we've ever done is the hip-hop influence. Not so much the actual sound of hip-hop, but more the vibrato and the artistry that comes with it. Right now, the artists that seem to be pushing to be the greatest artists and are trying to change the world are hip-hop artists.

You have many years ahead of you to create the dreams that we can't even imagine dreaming. You have done more for the collective unconscious of this planet than you will ever know.

I went and took golf lessons so Dad would let me play with him. I was just terrible... but I was able to have a wonderful time just walking around with Dad. I can see the real pleasure of that game.

I turn left for a living.

By reason of weird translation, many such sets of instructions read like poems anyhow.