Quotes to inspire and reflect

Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.

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

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

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

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

“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 rolls off my back like a duck.

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

Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

[ 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.

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

[ 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.

At church, with meek and unaffected grace,

But soon a wonder came to light

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

[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.

History of Little Goody Two-Shoes.

Classicism is health, romanticism is disease.

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.

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.

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

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

[ “Last words” :] Mehr Licht!

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

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust .

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint .

Das also war des Pudels Kern .

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.

Es irrt der Mensch, so lang er strebt .

Nur, wer die Sehnsucht kennt ,

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.

Noble be man,

Du musst herrschen und gewinnen ,

Er kann mich im Arsch lecken .

Der Zauberlehrling .

Even he did not get to keep that lovely body.

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

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

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

I’d better get right down to the job.

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

Asia is rising against me

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

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

America when will you be angelic?

[ The punishment of a billiard sharp :]

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.