“To take what there is in life and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived, to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that; this, doubtless, is the right way to live.”

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.

A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.

Innocent and infinite are the pleasures of observation.

It takes an endless amount of history to make even a little tradition.

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

I think I don’t regret a single “excess” of my responsive youth I only regret, in my chilled age, certain occasions and possibilities I didn’t embrace.

I am incapable of telling you not to feel. Feel, feel, I say – feel for all you’re worth, and even if it half kills you, for that is the only way to live.

We must know, as much as possible, in our beautiful art…what we are talking about and the only way to know is to have lived and loved and cursed and floundered and enjoyed and suffered.

He is outside of everything, and alien everywhere. He is an aesthetic solitary.

Try to be one of the people on whom nothing is lost!

The artist is present in every page of every book from which he sought so assiduously to eliminate himself.

Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Actually, when you’re doing something you love, even when you’re busy and it’s hectic you don’t feel the need to relax.

that is eventually going to have an effect on soldiers and troops who are actually going to believe that and it’s wrong. It’s just wrong.

I’m the New York Jew who actually grew up in Minnesota.

At the end of the playback of the take of “Like A Rolling Stone”, or actually during the thing.

And a little slate that came out of the wall that you could actually write on. And a door that locked from the outside.

I just wanted to remind people that Ministry is actually a good rock band. We can do some party stuff, too.

Having an actual income can expand your romantic horizons toward the more appealing end of the spectrum.

It’s hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it’s impossible to have that debate.