“Familiarity breeds contempt, while rarity wins admiration.”

But he who knows what insanity is, is sane; whereas insanity can no more be sensible of its own existence, than blindness can see itself.

If I keep my good character, I shall be rich enough.

A Mercury is not made out of any block of wood.

Venus herself, if she were bold, would not be Venus.

Poverty is the discoverer of all the arts.

It is a difficult matter to keep love imprisoned.

Working on The West Wing was similar in many ways to my experience on M*A*S*H, because you had people willing to work late at night to get it just right.

Memory is… similar to anticipation: an instrument of simplification and selection.

It is trying to imagine, remember the story, read it, put it down, and then write sort of an outline without the book in front of you with some hope that what you like about it will be filtered and distilled out through your memory and then that will be similar to what other people like about it.

Painting is similar to music. You get a couple or words or notes or chords that excite you, and you just follow them and add a bit more and see where it takes you. That’s the thrill for me. It still is a thrill, which is amazing after all this time.

The descent into Hades is much the same from whatever place we start.

I regard texture similar to the function of taste buds in our mouths. But in a visual form.

And tens of millions of Americans will feel a similar revulsion for the politicians and generals who were so spendthrift with others’ lives.

I listen to crazy, robust rock music where they sing their faces off, and soul music, which can be similar.