“Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty.”

You see things; you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you have lost something.

Your friends are all the dullest dogs.

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

In heaven an angel is no one in particular.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

Youth is wasted on the young.

The play was a great success, but audience was a dismal failure.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.

I choose not to make a graveyard of my body for the rotting corpses of dead animals.

Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.

Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world.

When was the first time you fell in love? When I started writing about beautiful things.

I believe that children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty they possess inside.

Secrets and mysteries provide a beautiful corridor where you can float out. The corridor expands and many, many wonderful things can happen, I love the process of going into mystery.

My mother taught me beauty really lives in places like a smile.

I get to go to all these beautiful places, so it’s nice being able to take pictures of it.

Through Kurt I saw the beauty of minimalism and the importance of music that’s stripped down.

Something very beautiful happens to people when their world’s fallen apart: a humility, a nobility, a higher intelligence emerges at just the point when our knees hit the floor.

I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found – the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.