“People of humor are always in some degree people of genius.”

The Beautiful arises from the perceived harmony of an object, whether sight or sound, with the inborn and constitutive rules of the judgment and imagination: and it is always intuitive.

Love is flower like; Friendship is like a sheltering tree.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration.

Some men are like musical glasses; to produce their finest tones you must keep them wet.

What if you slept? And what if, in your sleep, you went to heaven and there plucked a strange and beautiful flower? And what if,when you awoke,you had the flower in your hand? Ah, what then?

Imagination is the living power and prime agent of all human perception.

For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions, emotions, language.

The age seems sore from excess of stimulation, just as a day or two after a thorough Debauch and long sustained Drinking-match a man feels all over like a Bruise.

As a man without forethought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so forethought without reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast.

Genius is the power of carrying the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood.

The faults of great authors are generally excellences carried to an excess.

I have often thought what a melancholy world this would be without children, and what an inhuman world without the aged.

You see how this House of Commons has begun to verify all the ill prophecies that were made of it – low, vulgar, meddling with everything, assuming universal competency, and flattering every base passion – and sneering at everything noble refined and truly national.

My eyes make pictures when they are shut.

Of no agenor of any religion, or party or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind.

When I draw something, I try to build some kind of history into it.

You make one good shot and it brings you back the next time. With writing a long book there has to be at least one bit that has some magic in it that you can go back to.

I think all tragedies are best told with some humor. You have to relieve the darkness to let the reader get through it. Also, that life has happiness and sadness mixed together.

Some make light of decisions, arguing that all possible decisions will occur. In such a world, how could one be responsible for his actions?

I reached for some principle that had been subconscious in me and lifted it into consciousness.

Sons never escape from the shadows of their fathers. Nor do daughters of their mothers. No one ever comes into his own…Such is the cost of immortality. No person is whole. No person is free.

At some point preoccupation with safety can get in the way of living full lives.

Some of them are not as plugged into the digital world, so they want to go out and buy the CD at Walmart or something.