“There’s one way to find out if a man is honest: ask him; if he says yes, you know he’s crooked.”

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.

I must have a prodigious amount of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up!

I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made school boards.

Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy.

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.

Obscurity and a competence – that is the life that is best worth living.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where the smiles have been.

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.

My books are water; those of the great geniuses is wine. Everybody drinks water.

Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached.

It’s hard finding people you trust or who aren’t going to take your money. Everyone wants to get a piece of whatever you’re doing. It’s a nightmare.

When you think about where are you going to find that big love of your life, you seldom think it’s someone you already know. You think it’s someone you’re yet to meet.

My dad is really old school: Whatever you do, just be the best at it. He didn’t really care if I was a plumber or a roofer. It didn’t matter what I did. He said, Go out and find out what you like to do, and be the best at it.

Looking and not finding is certainly one of the most frustrating ways to spend time.

The feather was a thing, when I was a kid, we used to find feathers around the house, and whenever we found them, my mum used to say it was my nan leaving them around for us to find, so that was quite sweet.

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.

Sometimes when you’re playing a very intense character, a disturbed character, you find other layers. That’s much more interesting to me, rather than just playing ‘intense.’ I find it too boring.