Archives - November 2005

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it --- a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand --- as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.

Man is a make-believe animal --- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part.

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

Expectations is the place you must always go to before you get to where you're going. Of course, some people never go beyond Expectations, but my job is to hurry them along whether they like it or not.

Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.

Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

I firmly believe that there was an ancient language, the language of the melodies that make us all be understood. The melody of ancient times must resound in our souls so that we may have a human life. The ancient melody, the so many times forgotten melody, the melody of love.

Good questions outrank easy answers.

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.

I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are.

Every exit is an entry somewhere.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.

The trick is to combine your waking rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams. Because, if you can do that, you can do anything.

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice.

Books are not men and yet they stay alive.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing.... The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this.

Wisdom is not in words; wisdom is meaning within words.