The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilized society.

If God wished to punish us, all he would need to do would be to answer our prayers.

Because sometimes you have to do something bad to do something good.

An idea that isn't risky is hardly worth calling an idea.

It is a pity to make a mystery out of what should most easily be understood. There is nothing occult about the thought that all things maybe made well or made ill. A work of art is a well-made thing - that is all. It may be a well-made statue of a well-made chair or a well-made book. Art is not a special sauce applied to ordinary cooking; it is the cooking itself that is good. Most simply and generally, Art may be thought of as "The Well Doing of What Needs Doing."

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

Tell the cook of this restaurant with my compliments that these are the very worst sandwiches in the whole world, and that, when I ask for a watercress sandwich, I do not mean a loaf with a field in the middle of it.