“The vague torment of ambition.”

The word realist means nothing to me, because I would subordinate reality to temperament. Give me what is true and I applaud; but give me what is individual and alive and I applaud even more.

If something’s just, I’ll let myself be hacked to bits for it.

They talked so, with secret hearts, without needing words, talking of other things. They could have suddenly continued their confessions aloud, without ceasing to understand each other.

If you ask me what I came into this life to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.

In love as in speculation there is much filth; in love also, people think only of their own gratification; yet without love there would be no life, and the world would come to an end.

When sometimes, behind his back, they called him a tyrant, he merely smiled and uttered this profound observation: If some day I turn liberal, they will say I have let them down.

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.

Art is a corner of creation seen through a temperament.

Oh, the fools, like a lot of good little schoolboys, scared to death of anything they’ve been taught is wrong!

When truth is buried, it grows. It chokes. It gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it.

Civilization will not attain to its perfection until the last stone from the last church falls on the last priest.

One forges one’s style on the terrible anvil of daily deadlines.

The road to Lourdes is littered with crutches, but not one wooden leg.

If I cannot overwhelm with my quality, I will overwhelm with my quantity.

Respectable people, What bastards!

Everything is only a dream.

We don’t wish for the easy stuff. We wish for big things. Things that are ambitious, out of reach.

I’ve never been particularly ambitious. I’m driven by the moment.

My ambition is always to get better and better.

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.

I am always motivated. I am ambitious and I want to always improve.

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.

Fears, even the most basic ones, can totally destroy our ambitions. Fear, if left unchecked, can destroy our lives. Fear is one of the many enemies lurking inside us.