“It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.”

It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.

If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living.

The history books which contain no lies are extremely tedious.

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

Science neither cares to please nor to displease. She is inhuman. It is not science but poetry that charms and consoles. And that is why poetry is more necessary than science.

When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Dictionary: The universe in alphabetical order.

Man is a rational animal. He can think up a reason for anything he wants to believe.

The wonder is, not that the field of stars is so vast, but that man has measured it.

People who have no weaknesses are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them.

It is not customary to love what one has

If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.

Without lies, humanity would perish of despair and boredom

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me.

We’re never going to escape the idea of being young. Which I don’t mind myself. I mean, who wants to grow up anyway?

It’s paradoxical, that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.

Nothing’s harder than writing. There’s no comparison. With directing, you can bounce a lot of ideas around. There’s tremendous support – you’ve got editors and sound mixers. With writing, it’s all you, and it’s just crippling when people tear up your pages.

The church has historically been very slow to embrace technology. Until very recently, their idea of a laptop was an altar boy.

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.

Home schooling as an idea is on a par with home dentistry.

Living in L.A., everyone likes to mold you and change you. I don’t care about fame, I don’t care about being a celebrity. I know that’s part of the job, but I don’t feed into anyone’s idea of who I should be.

If somebody has a better idea than me, I’ll take it if it surpasses what we have on the page because at the end of the day, it’s me that takes the credit anyway!