“Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.”

Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.

The only way to kill death is through photography.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.

Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like – then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.

Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.

I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.

Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.

Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.

I am lucky to be what I am! Thank goodness I’m not just a clam, or a ham, or a dusty jar of sour gooseberry jam! I am what I am – that’s a great thing to be!

Don’t let loneliness drive you back into the arms of someone who doesn’t give a damn about you.

I know how to play my guard spot, he can worry about the low post.

Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart.

Being cool, having a ‘cool’ energy is just not attractive to me.

Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.

My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself.