Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
A society that has made 'nostalgia' a marketable commodity on the cultural exchange quickly repudiates the suggestion that life in the past was in any important way better than life today.
Nowadays I actually cook Italian-style food more than French heavy sauces. I make a good salad, some great roasted vegetables, grilled fish. I'm crazy about L.A. because at the farmers' market you find all kinds of wild mushrooms.
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
In most, if not quite all, parts of the world, the size, shape and longevity of the human body have changed more substantially, and much more rapidly, during the past three centuries than over many previous millennia.
Nashville, there's people that are ten times more talented than me, ten times better singer than me, song writer than me, but for some reason you get the ball, and now - and now you run with it. And you do the best you can.
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it.
In other words, the people who populate my books are more than caricatures.
I had starred in more than 30 successful films, six in a row directed by Cecil B. De Mille.
Having two older brothers is a healthy reminder that you're always closer to the bottom than you are to the top.
The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind.
To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.
Nothing more strongly arouses our disgust than cannibalism, yet we make the same impression on Buddhists and vegetarians, for we feed on babies, though not our own.
I would borrow money all day long, if the cost of borrowing is less than the expected return.
Not caring more about what other people think than what you think. That's freedom.
The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.
If I had a talent, it was for looking askew at everything, possibly more than my contemporaries. But I had to really push myself to be a writer.
In the United States, securities markets are much more developed than they are in Europe.
To be honest with you, there's nothing that bores me more than sitting around with a bunch of actors talking shop. I love actors and I've got friends that are actors. They're interesting people. But for some reason, usually when it comes round to talking shop, there's a part of me that doesn't like it.
For me, beauty is more about prevention than anything. Especially now that I've hit 30, it's more about being careful and maintaining my skin. I want to keep my youth and freshness and be wrinkle-free as long as possible because I don't want to have to cheat - that's what I call any cosmetic surgeries: cheating.
I can no more think of my own life without thinking of wine and wines and where they grew for me and why I drank them when I did and why I picked the grapes and where I opened the oldest procurable bottles, and all that, than I can remember living before I breathed.
You know, I looked at my face in the mirror this morning, and I like being old. My face has more content and when I train in the gym now, I am not training to be strong or handsome - just better than I was yesterday. These days the race is just against myself.
Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.
I am the best. There is nobody better than me.
Cobnuts have a fresher flavour than any other nut I know of and go very well with autumnal fruit and light cheeses.
People think that dreams are better than reality but this is not always the case; sometimes, because you dream too much, you are unable to see what you have in front of your very eyes.
In mine opinion, love is fitter than fear, gentleness better than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning.
A MIDI file contains coded instructions to play a particular series of notes on an electronic music synthesizer. A MIDI file is more like a piano roll in a player piano than any type of sound recording.
You know, I want to help my country. Definitely I can help them, simply by winning races. Sure, they can follow my path to a good career. But for me it is not enough. I want to be more than that. In everything I want to be a role model.
I think a guy who's had just the right amount of booze can sing the blues a hell of a lot better than a guy who is stone sober.
After six or seven performances of any song, you begin to perform it rather than feel it.
Most people might just as well buy a share of the whole market, which pools all the information, than delude themselves into thinking they know something the market doesn't.
The more studies that come out that talk about concussions and so forth, it makes me wonder. I wonder, more importantly than the stroke, the impact that concussions have had on my life, particularly as I get older.
I want to be fulfilled in myself, rather than try to follow exactly in my father's footsteps.
I think the best American poetry is the poetry that utilizes the resources of poetry rather than exploits the defects or triumphs of the poet's personality.
