“Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.”

Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.

The only way to kill death is through photography.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.

Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like – then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.

Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.

I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.

Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.

Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.

Do not take someone’s silence as his pride, perhaps he is busy fighting with his self.

I don’t promote giving up. I promote fighting and winning.

Who wishes to fight must first count the cost

We are never assured of justice without a fight.

President Obama is right – we can’t just imagine a better future. We have to fight for it. One more day. Let’s give it all we’ve got.

Fight every chance you can to be you. Don’t let them intimidate you. Authenticity is greatness.

I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.

No references to the need to fight terror can be an argument for restricting human rights.