“You must always be prepared to place a bet on yourself, on your future, by heading in a direction that others seem to fear.”

People go into things for the wrong reasons.

Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.

Nothing is given to you.

The moment people feel they know what to expect from you, your spell on them is broken.

I believe that everything happens for a reason, and what seems bad at first might in fact be something of a blessing.

The problem with human beings is that they can’t sit alone in a room for more than an hour.

Boldness makes even the smallest animal dangerous.

For the future, the motto is, “No days unalert.”

What’s good for me is certainly not good for other people.

Strike the shepherd and the sheep will scatter.

When our emotions are engaged, we often have trouble seeing things as they are.

There’s no more of an excuse for blaming other people or the world for at least not trying what you should be trying.

It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause by yourself. By maintaining your independence, you become the master of others — playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Keep your friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent

Some people are a little bit better than others, some people are great, some people are superior. It depends on the level of effort.

True genius, in strategy or anywhere, lies in self-control, self-mastery, presence of mind, fluidity of thought.

Don’t let others dictate who you are. Decide for yourself.

There are so many young women in film school right now, and it’s just about foreign sales companies, domestic sales companies agreeing to finance films directed by and starring women.

It’s not easy to see things from the middle, rather than looking down on them from above or up at them from below, or from left to right or right to left: try it, you’ll see that everything changes.

We’re all conning ourselves, one way or another, just to get through life.

Religion is a salve for confusion and misdirection.

What is the use of voting? We know that the machines of both parties are subsidized by the same persons, and therefore it is useless to turn in either direction.

You’re not always meant to know where you are heading.

For life is tendency, and the essence of a tendency is to develop in the form of a sheaf, creating, by its very growth, divergent directions among which its impetus is divided.