Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other. It is usually both.

Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into a system.

Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other. It is usually both.

Progress would be wonderful - if only it would stop.

It is reality that awakens possibilities, and nothing would be more perverse than to deny it.

If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility.

Life is to blame for everything.

The thought came to me that all one loves in art becomes beautiful. Beauty is nothing but the expression of the fact that something is being loved. Only thus could she be defined.

On this thin, scarcely real and yet so perceptible sensation the whole world hung as on a faintly trembling axis, and this in turn rested on the two people in the room.

Time, which runs through the world like an endless tinsel thread, seemed to pass through the centre of this room and through the centre of these people and suddenly to pause and petrify, stiff, still and glittering... and the objects in the room drew a little closer together.

It will always be the same possibilities, in sum or on the average, that go on repeating themselves until a man comes along who does not value the actuality above idea. It is he who first gives the new possibilities their meaning, their direction, and he awakens them.

What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture.

The difference between a healthy person and one who is mentally ill is the fact that the healthy one has all the mental illnesses, and the mentally ill person has only one.

A particularly fine head on a man usually means that he is stupid; particularly deep philosophers are usually shallow thinkers; in literature, talents not much above the average are usually regarded by their contemporaries as geniuses.

All still lifes are actually paintings of the world on the sixth day of creation, when God and the world were alone together, without man!

Layer by layer art strips life bare.

Anything that endures over time sacrifices its ability to make an impression.

Don't you know that every perfect life would mean the end of art?

The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again.

Today I start a diary; it is against my usual habbits, but out of a clearly felt need.

It is, all in all, a historic error to believe that the master makes the school; the students make it!

There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument

By continually scolding someone, they in time become accustomed to it and despise your reproof.

I suppose you all grant that woman is a human being. If she has a right to life she has a right to earn a support for that life. If a human being, she has a right to have her powers and faculties as a human being developed. If developed, she has a right to exercise them.

I'm never going to retire and say, 'This is it. This is my last show.' I will not go on tour - I promised my wife and son no more than two weeks on the road.

I've had meetings where there were literally, like, 12 angry men in a room and me. And even when everyone shot me down, I somehow dug in one more time.

Honoring the priesthood fosters respect, respect promotes reverence, and reverence invites revelation.

My life experiences are different than the average person because I've spent the last 10 years living in Mexico. I generally don't know what's going on in America, and when I do visit for work, I'm often interrogated about my life choices by random strangers.

As God commands us men to teach your wife, to teach your children - to be the spiritual leader of your family - you're acting as a priest. Now, unfortunately, unfortunately, in too many Christian homes, the role of the priest is assumed by the wife.

I think if you're everyone's cup of tea, that probably means you're a little bit boring, or you're not pushing yourself. Creativity happens where it's dangerous and scary: where you're not comfortable.

There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.

Family dynamics are true over time, across generations and different cultures.

One of the great defects of English books printed in the last century is the want of an index.

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful one can wage a pitiless war but not against the unattractive then the millstone weighs on the breast.

Shows are really strange. Sometimes you really don't know what to expect.

Great is the victory, but the friendship of all is greater.

We didn't care about salaries and having a nice car. We just cared about science and were really ambitious.

I think using anti-aging products really helps; the sooner the better, you know?

For me, travel happens when I see an interesting opportunity happening.

Sunday is the one day I keep reminding myself that I should lay around and take it easy, but because I am O.C.D. and an extreme multitasker, I find it hard to get lazy. I love Sundays for painting because it's quieter; the gallery is closed, and there are no interruptions.

In the building I live in on Park Avenue there are ten people who could buy the Yankees, but none of them could hit the ball out of Yankee Stadium.

Selflessness is the highest goal of good leaders.

Even for southerners, Arkansans are amazingly friendly and extend hospitality to all strangers with astonishing openness. You couldn't find a pretension in that state if you hunted from Jonesboro to El Dorado.

Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.

I would hope it's better, but I'm actually acknowledging now that I want to explore all these levels from a whisper to a scream with this gift I've been given.

Before you worry about what genre it is, about whether it's a loop or a drum, it's about what suits the song. It's using what's within your reach, but also reaching for everything you can. I don't know if I always get it right, because I don't know every sound yet.