“I was hooked on writing. I mean, where else can you get paid for sticking your nose into somebody else’s business?”

Experiencing life through a book can help you learn without all the pain of going through the experiences first hand.

And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces-spaces you know can’t ever be filled.

Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.

When people’s emotions are involved they don’t want to listen.

I love Arkansas but I think Arkansas has its share of unlit minds.

The world is not a rational place.

Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain’t no greater love in this here world than that.

Look inside yourself and you’ll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.

It seems to me that a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty.

I believe that love is better than hate. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral.

Maybe…in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe…maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it’s a little like life. I mean it’s powerful going down and that doesn’t even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.

A person’s got to think, otherwise that person’s no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he’d know he was making a thousand children laugh.

Keep in mind that life produces no maestros, only students of varying shades of ineptitude.

What is genius, anyway, if it isn’t the ability to give an adequate response to a great challenge?

What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you’re in pain?

Why is it I’m always so quick to believe that people are thinking…believing the worst about me?

I wish it were different, but my body clock wakes me up between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. I was even talking yesterday about how, if I want to get enough sleep, I have to be in bed at 10. That means I’m totally a grandma.

We need to find another way or another shape or an allegory or something that tells us more.

For modelling, you have to be such a strong person in a way – or seen to be a strong person, do you know what I mean? But in acting you have to get in touch with all the vulnerability that you carry.

If a diplomat says yes, he means perhaps. If he says perhaps he means no. And if he says no, he’s the hell of a diplomat.

I tried to find a language for the film – not just telling stories. I picked the Picasso painting because it said more than I could explain.

I need images, I need representation which deals in other means than reality. We have to use reality but get out of it. That’s what I try to do all the time.

To share a lot of ideas – not ideas – emotions, a way of looking at people, a way of looking at life. If it can be shared, it means there is a common denominator.

An old woman I loved very much when I was young – the wife of Jean Villard – she’s just reciting poetry all the time, which is beautiful because it means she went back to the world of poetry that she loved when she was young. That’s all she does.