No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.
The same thing which is now called Christian religion existed among the ancients. They have begun to call 'Christian' the true religion which existed before.
I have always detested any departure from reality, an attitude which I relate to my mother's poor mental health.
Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at, with originality, which they should never bother about.
My mother encouraged it so much. She was so supportive. Even if as a kid, I would do the dumbest trick, which now that I look back on some things, she would love it, she would say that's amazing, or if I'd make the ugliest drawing, she would hang it up. She was amazing.
There were no international terrorists in Iraq until we went in. It was we who gave the perfect conditions in which Al Qaeda could thrive.
One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.
These flowers, which were splendid and sprightly, waking in the dawn of the morning, in the evening will be a pitiful frivolity, sleeping in the cold night's arms.
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.
It ought to be illegal for an artist to marry. If the artist must marry let him find someone more interested in art, or his art, or the artist part of him, than in him. After which let them take tea together three times a week.
To go from 'Generation Kill,' which is a very real, dark, gritty series, to 'True Blood,' which is flamboyant, crazy, way out there... I couldn't ask for two better jobs.
In my experience, every book you write changes the conditions in which you write the next.
As soon as a redwood is cut down or burned, it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful shoots, which, if allowed to grow, would in a few decades attain a height of a hundred feet, and the strongest of them would finally become giants as great as the original tree.
Genius is the very eye of intellect and the wing of thought; it is always in advance of its time, and is the pioneer for the generation which it precedes.
Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.
That which today calls itself science gives us more and more information, and indigestible glut of information, and less and less understanding.
You can feel whether an audience is tightened up and pulled back. Of course the opposite is an audience like we've been having in LA, which is fabulous.
It has been well said that tea is suggestive of a thousand wants, from which spring the decencies and luxuries of civilization.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
I started when Chris Rock did 'Bigger & Blacker.' I used to watch that before I went onstage as inspiration to get hype, but I noticed I started taking on his cadence and talking like him. I was also doing the New York-style comedy thing, which was angry and annoyed. I was creating a persona instead of trying to embrace my own.
It shouldn't be the asylum seekers wondering which country they want go to. It should be Europe telling them where to be, be it Lithuania, Sweden, or wherever.
When I was first pregnant, which was, let's see, in nineteen-eighty-three - I remember wearing a regular bathing suit to my in-laws' pool. It was just like a spandex one-piece, completely modest, and yet people were looking at me like it was obscene.
I understand what my gift is, which is making people laugh, hopefully. It's more on that level. I don't need to be a leading man, I'm fine with that.
Not so long ago, my feminist education taught me to ask the question, 'Is the gaze male?' The answer, apparently, is yes, which is why so many movies and television shows are about men and not women.
A truly common culture is not one in which we all think alike, or in which we all believe that fairness is next to godliness, but one in which everyone is allowed to be in on the project of cooperatively shaping a common way of life.
There was some scene in The Blues Brothers movie, when they had the chicken wire across the front of the stage, and it was almost like that. They had a big guard rail around the stage, which kept the college kids from getting on... we had some good times.
It's only a drawback in the States, where most people seem to have no real interest in other countries and the notion of a novel which might offer insight into life in the UK doesn't seem to appeal very widely.
I had this desire to understand Islam better and then focus on the beauty of Arabic and Islamic cultures. And one of the first things to emerge was Arabic calligraphy, which was instantly inspiring.
My father's life was so decimated by his earliest experiences. His mother died when he was 7 years old, which he always said was the worst experience in his life. When he was 8, his father disappeared and he was on his own from the age of 8.
Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do.
The play is one of the very few pieces of great dramatic and comic writing that I have read in a long, long time. I was drawn to it because of the power of the writing, which gives me the actor a chance to explore many facets of myself.
The law established by the Creator, which has existed from the beginning, extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind.
The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.
