“It strikes me as being morally repulsive and intellectually absurd that people die of want in a world of surplus.”

“Civility is not a sign of weakness.”

“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from my experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”

“Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.”

“What the public wants are big laughs and big tits and lots of ’em. Lucky for me that’s what I like too.”

“The rage (which is as much anguish as it is anger) is a way of catharsis, a way of getting temporary relief from the heavy feeling of impotence that affects many who cannot understand a civilization which juggles its own means for oblivion and calls that performance an act towards peace.”

“If you’ve got them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow.”

“In the world of immersion, authorship is no longer the transmission of experience, but rather the construction of utterly personal experiences.”

“I need the connection to the world of sensuality, the courage to wretchedness, life undiluted. No, artists should not teach and convert. They are far too small. They must only bear witness.”

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”

“The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.”

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.”

“In art, the highest success is to be the last of your race, not the first. Almost anybody can make a beginning, the difficulty is to make an end, to do what cannot be bettered.”

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”

Why of course the people don’t want war…that is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship …Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

“The delights of self-discovery are always available.”

“If your image does not work, put a dog in it. If it still doesn’t work, put a bandage on the dog.”

“The life of the artist is the refusal of sex. Art proceeds from the inability to seduce. I’m not capable of convincing anyone to love me. In reality the equation is: sex and murder, sex and death.”

“If you just give the people the truth, the Republic will be safe.”