“I don’t exactly know what I mean by that, but I mean it.”

All morons hate it when you call them a moron.

People are always ruining things for you.

People are mostly hot to have a discussion when you’re not.

The true poet has no choice of material. The material plainly chooses him, not he it.

There are nice things in the world – and I mean nice things. We’re all such morons to get so sidetracked.

Sometimes you get tired of riding in taxicabs the same way you get tired riding in elevators. All of a sudden, you have to walk, no matter how far or how high up.

I have so much I want to tell you, and nowhere to begin.

You don’t have to think too hard when you talk to teachers.

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people.

I mean how do you know what you’re going to do till you do it? The answer is, you don’t. I think I am, but how do I know? I swear it’s a stupid question.

I can be quite sarcastic when I’m in the mood.

Did you ever get fed up?’ I said. ‘I mean did you ever get scared that everything was going to go lousy unless you did something?

Sleep tight, ya morons!

Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.

She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.

The worst thing that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly.

One has to use words to make headings, that’s all it is. It’s rather like the stupidity in a picture gallery today where you have to write under it what the scene or person is. It is equally as nonsensical as that.

No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is.

I had long ago discovered that when a word or formula refused to come to mind the best thing for it was to think of something else: tigers for instance or oatmeal.

I have a final word of advice to our students. If you work very, very hard, this is the kind of actor, writer and director you may turn out to be, and if you work extra hard, this is the kind of person you may turn out to be.

In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.

Be sincere. Be simple in words, manners, and gestures. Amuse as well as instruct.

I still don’t like the word agnostic. It’s too fancy. I’m simply not a believer. But, as simple as this notion is, it confuses some people.

artists try to say things that can’t be said. in a fragile net of words, gestures, or colors, we hope to capture a feeling.