It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself.

There is only one kind of shock worse than the totally unexpected: the expected for which one has refused to prepare.

The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes.

To hate excellence is to hate the gods.

Do not believe that others will die, not you.... I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul.

It is better to believe in men too rashly, and regret, than believe too meanly. Men could be more than they are, if they would try for it. He has shown them that.