In war, as in prostitution, amateurs are often better than professionals.
And what would you do,. . . if you could rule the world for a day? I suppose I would have no choice but to abolish reality.
Is not art a tool we employ to peel the kitsch off life? Layer by layer art strips life bare. The more abstract it gets, the more transparent the air is. Can it be that the farther it is removed from life, the clearer art becomes?
In their field they [mathematicians] do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson. . . of their existence. They are an analogy for the intellectual of the future.
It is, all in all, a historic error to believe that the master makes the school; the students make it!
Strong emotional experiences are for the most part impersonal. Anyone who has hated another person so much that only chance stands between that person and death knows this, as does whoever has fallen into the catastrophe of a deep depression, anyone who has loved a woman to the dregs, anyone who has beaten others bloody or ever come up behind another person with muscles trembling. "Losing one's head," language calls it. Emotional experience is, in itself, poor in qualities; qualities are brought to it by the person who has the experience.
. . . the structure of a page of good prose is, analyzed logically, not something frozen but the vibrating of a bridge, which changes with every step one takes on it.
I like voice-over in films, and most of my films have been voice-over films.
It is above all man's social position that decides whether he will sublimate his sadism as a butcher, surgeon, or policeman.
Over-population is the 'cause of drive-by shootings' and other social ills, but the root of the problem is Christianity, which posits that people are more important than sea otters and elephants.
When I very first started out, I had that arrogance of youth.