Quotes

How marvelous is Man! How proud the word rings—Man!

Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.

“And he was as intelligent as other people, his soul was pure and clear as crystal; he was noble and affectionate—and yet he did nothing!”

It was a miracle; it was all a miracle: and one ought to have known, from the sufferings of saints, that miracles are horror.

It rolls off my back like a duck.

I want a film that begins with an earthquake and works up to a climax.

Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

I can answer you in two words, “Im possible.”

[ Of his film The Best Years of Our Lives before its opening, 1946 :] I don’t care if it doesn’t make a nickel, I just want every man, woman, and child in America to see it.

[ When urged to write his autobiography :] Oh no. I can’t do that—not until long after I’m dead.

I’ll give you a definite maybe.

[ Of films with “messages” :] Messages are for Western Union.

I find you want me to furnish you with argument and intellects too.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,

But soon a wonder came to light

History of Little Goody Two-Shoes.

[Are not] you too, Russia, speeding along like a spirited troika that nothing can overtake? . . . Everything on earth is flying past, and looking askance, other nations and states draw aside and make way.

If any one asks me for good advice, I say I will give it, but only on condition that you promise me not to take it.

I compare the earth and her atmosphere to a great living being perpetually inhaling and exhaling.

Classicism is health, romanticism is disease.

[ “Last words” :] Mehr Licht!

His high rank, as an English peer, was very injurious to Byron, for all genius is oppressed by the outer world;—how much more by high rank and great possessions! The middle station is most favorable to genius; you find the great artists and poets there.

Amerika, du hast es besser—als unser Kontinent, das alte .

Was man in der Jugend wünscht, hat man im Alter die Fülle .

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint .

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust .

Das also war des Pudels Kern .

Es irrt der Mensch, so lang er strebt .

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us. Raise them the best we can, and leave them free to develop.

The fate of the architect is the strangest of all. How often he expends his whole soul, his whole heart and passion, to produce buildings into which he himself may never enter.

Du musst herrschen und gewinnen ,

Nur, wer die Sehnsucht kennt ,

Der Zauberlehrling .

Noble be man,

Even he did not get to keep that lovely body.

Er kann mich im Arsch lecken .

Soon the birds and ancients

Les affaires, c’est l’argent des autres!

There is nothing to be learned from history any more. We’re in science fiction now.

With the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their own bodies good to eat a thousand years.

I’d better get right down to the job.

who lost their loveboys to the three old shrews of fate the one eyed shrew of the heterosexual dollar the one eyed shrew that winks out of the womb and the one eyed shrew that does nothing but sit on her ass and snip the intellectual golden threads of the craftsman’s loom.

Asia is rising against me

America how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood?

America when will you be angelic?

Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical joke?

I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist. It is on view Tuesdays and Fridays, on presentation of visiting card.

“Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?” I cried,