“If I could pronounce the name James in any different or more elaborate way I should be in favor of doing it.”

I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of an artistic process.

Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.

We work in the dark – we do what we can – we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.

He is the same old sausage, fizzing and sputtering in his own grease.

Don’t underestimate the value of irony-it is extremely valuable.

I don’t care anything about reasons, but I know what I like.

Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

Life is a predicament which precedes death.

In art economy is always beauty.

If one is strong, one loves the more strongly.

One doesn’t defend one’s god: one’s god is in himself a defense.

You are good for nothing unless you are clever.

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implications of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern . . . this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience.

It led rather downward and earthward, into realms of restriction and depression, where the sound of other lives, easier and freer, was heard as from above, and served to deepen the feeling of failure.

Excellence does not require perfection.

There’s no more usual basis of union than mutual misunderstanding.

The more elaborate our means of our common sense is, the less the common sense it becomes.

Even as children, human beings fabricate elaborate revenge fantasies.

Over the years but are far too elaborate to cover in one article.

It is all very well to say that children are happier with mud pies and rag dolls than with these elaborate delights.

The rituals we use for marriage, baptism or inaugurating a president are as elaborate as they are because we associate the ritual with a major life passage, the crossing of a critical threshold, or in other words, with transformation.

Indian weddings are elaborate. As a culture, we like to celebrate everything Our weddings go on for sometimes a week, 10 days.

I just wrapped ‘Eclipse’ yesterday and the last scene we shot is probably my favorite thus far. I finally got to tell my story, in a very gentle yet elaborate way.

In love, Jealousy is the great exaggerator.