Let there be nothing harmonious about our children's playthings, lest they grow up expecting peace and order, and be eaten alive.

Plato, by the way, wanted to banish all poets from his proposed Utopia because they were liars. The truth was that Plato knew philosophers couldn't compete successfully with poets.

If I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice.

No one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

It is never a mistake to say good-bye.

Rabo Karabekian: I'm in the middle of a sentence. Circe Berman: Who isn't?.

How nice -- to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive.