“I hate women, hate them generally, not in particular but in an abstract way. I hate them because one never really learns anything about them. They are inscrutable.”

Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.

I’m not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.

Crooks aren’t the worst people, just the stupidest. The fleas of the world.

Create your own visual style. Let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.

At twenty-one, so many things appear solid, permanent, untenable.

If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.

I prefer people who rock the boat to people who jump out.

Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.

I don’t say we all ought to misbehave, but we ought to look as if we could.

I do not suppose I shall be remembered for anything. But I don’t think about my work in those terms. It is just as vulgar to work for the sake of posterity as to work for the sake of money.

Never expect justice in this world. That is not part of God’s plan. Everybody thinks that if they don’t get it, they’re some kind of odd man out. And it’s not true. Nobody gets justice – people just get good luck or bad luck.

A movie in production is the greatest train set a boy could ever have.

Friendship creates only the illusion of not being alone.

See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I’m profoundly convinced that that’s a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.

An artist is always out of step with the time. He has to be.

Criticism is the essence of creation.

A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

I need not hate any man; he cannot hurt me. I need not flatter any man; he has nothing to give me.

Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

I’m one of those people who fiercely guards their privacy, so I hate doing interviews.

Nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first understood.

I love you only because it’s you the one I love; I hate you deeply, and hating you Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them.