“Hell is full of musical amateurs.”

Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.

Imagination is the beginning of creation.

Doing what needs to be done may not make you happy, but it will make you great.

A man of my spiritual intensity does not eat corpses.

Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life.

You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.

Do not waste your time on Social Questions. What is the matter with the poor is Poverty what is the matter with the rich is Uselessness.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

The amateur tweets. The pro works.

Every master was once a beginner. Every pro was once an amateur.

The sign of the amateur is overglorification of and preoccupation with the mystery. The professional shuts up. She doesn’t talk about it. She does her work.

I’m very, very amateur, which is funny because I’m not in the amateur leagues.

Chess has this in common with making poetry; that the desire for it comes upon the amateur in gusts.

Patience and persistence are two characteristics that differentiate the professional from the amateur.

No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.

Every artist was first an amateur.