“And there I sat, long long ago, waiting for the world to know me.”

Moonlight is sculpture.

I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.

There is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory; and any man who does, is not worthy of one.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.

Oh, for the years I have not lived, but only dreamed of living.

I cannot endure to waste anything as precious as autumn sunshine by staying in the house. So I spend almost all the daylight hours in the open air.

Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.

There is evil in every human heart, which may remain latent, perhaps, through the whole of life; but circumstances may rouse it to activity.

We go all wrong by too strenuous a resolution to go right.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

What other dungeon is so dark as one’s own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one’s self!

Generosity is the flower of justice.

Selfishness is one of the qualities apt to inspire love.

Happiness is like a butterfly.

We’d never get anything fixed to suit us if we waited for things to suit us before we started.

Everything comes too late for those who only wait.

Start leaving what you want to leave. Your future is waiting.

What is my nothingness to the stupor that awaits you?

Stop waiting. Feel everything. Love achingly. Give impeccably. Let go.

Begin where you are. Don’t wait for someone else to change things for you. Do it yourself.

I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

Zhang Yimou is an artist. Sometimes we did only two or three shots a day because we were waiting for the sun.