“Usually we praise only to be praised.”

Quarrels would not last long if the fault was only on one side.

The principal point of cleverness is to know how to value things just as they deserve.

We should often feel ashamed of our best actions if the world could see all the motives which produced them.

Some people displease with merit, and others’ very faults and defects are pleasing.

No man deserves to be praised for his goodness, who has it not in his power to be wicked. Goodness without that power is generally nothing more than sloth, or an impotence of will.

The reason why so few people are agreeable in conversation is that each is thinking more about what he intends to say than others are saying.

We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.

The virtues and vices are all put in motion by interest.

Our virtues are often, in reality, no better than vices disguised.

As great minds have the faculty of saying a great deal in a few words, so lesser minds have a talent of talking much, and saying nothing.

One forgives to the degree that one loves.

We have no patience with other people’s vanity because it is offensive to our own.

Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.

What is called generosity is usually only the vanity of giving; we enjoy the vanity more than the thing given.

There are very few things impossible in themselves; and we do not want means to conquer difficulties so much as application and resolution in the use of means.

Few things are impracticable in themselves; and it is for want of application, rather than of means, that men fail to succeed.

I’m not willing to drag my fans down a road I don’t believe in. That’s just my one little principle. I’ve only got one, and that’s it.

I took no position on just where they stand on the scale of horrors relative to Auschwitz, the bombing of Chungking, Lidice, and so on.

Everybody’s going through changes. No one knows what’s going on.

There are times when I am directing, and there are a couple of moments I didn’t get the way I wanted, but I know I still have other angles to shoot and I have to be done by noon; I move on.

On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!

Failure’s relative. I’ve always felt, even early on, if I lose the freedom to fail, something’s not right about that. It’s how you treat failure, too.

When you live from freelance check to freelance check, your mind is always on “What’s the next piece I’m going to write, or draw, that’ll pay this month’s rent?” And so going out to play ball with my kids was a low priority.

Demagoguery sells. And therefore, radio stations will put it on. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t do something else and also make it sell.