I'd rather make one righteous dollar on my level Than make a million dollars spittin' rhymes for the devil.
I have my own dying empire to contend with, and I do not wish for any other.
Reading is entering into the consciousness of another human being.
If you stop thinking, if you stop wondering, you die.
You are not what you want. You are what wants you back.
If my mother hadn't tried to sell me chicken Kiev cutlets for $1. 40 after I graduated from college, maybe I would've been the lawyer she wanted me to be.
Good fiction makes me turn off all the other parts of my brain, so that I become quiet and submissive, entirely at the mercy of the work at hand.
Every problem born of our poverty brought with it a sense of impotence: No escape, no help, anywhere!
Your suffering is my suffering and your happiness is my happiness.
Humanity takes itself too seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the cave-man had known how to laugh, History would have been different.
Cate Blanchett is mesmerizing. I don't know why. It's beyond my understanding. Why we all want to work with her is she elevates the rest of us. She's just got some ethereal grace and elegance that's beyond me, and an acute understanding of human nature. She's just exquisite. She's otherworldly.