What is a scientist after all? It is a curious man looking through a keyhole, the keyhole of nature, trying to know what's going on.

I am not a scientist. I am, rather, an impresario of scientists.

If we were logical, the future would be bleak, indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope, and we can work.

The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years.

The sea, the great unifier, is man's only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.

Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history.

No sooner does man discover intelligence than he tries to involve it in his own stupidity.

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.

The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave their guns on the wall is going to be very difficult.

The truths are universal: Every kid knows fear. Every kid knows family and friendship. Loss, love, laughter. Everything else is just detail.

Having a superpower has nothing to do with the ability to fly or jump, or superhuman strength. The truest superpowers are the ones we all possess: willpower, integrity, and most importantly, courage.

I wanted to be a poet. I fell in love with poetry around eight years old, but not through literature. Instead, it came through hip-hop lyrics and my obsession with reading liner notes. Queen Latifah's 'Black Reign' is the album that stands out the most.

Queen Latifah was writing poetry. Maybe Latifah's 'Ladies First' and Angelou's 'Phenomenal Woman' are the same thing, a generation apart.

Poetry has the ability to create entire moments with just a few choice words. The spacing and line breaks create rhythm, a helpful musicality, a natural flow. The separate stanzas aid in perpetuating a kind of incremental reading, one small chunk at a time.

My relationship to comics isn't nearly as strong as some people's. Ha! I mean, I grew up with a comic book fanatic. My older brother was, and still is, obsessed. And I was obsessed with the fact that he was obsessed, because I was obsessed with him. But not necessarily with comics themselves.

The truth of the matter is that chess is not the game of life because life does not ever happen the way you strategize and plan.

I have a chip on my shoulder I pet every morning, a constant feeling like I have something to prove. Hearing that the canon can't be diversified, there's no room for more brown faces - that fueled my fire.

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.

The signs of outstanding leadership appear primarily among the followers. Are the followers reaching their potential? Are they learning? Serving? Do they achieve the required results? Do they change with grace? Manage conflict?

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.

In this business, you gotta hustle.

I remember in '37 when trolley cars were so big in New York. It was five cents for a ride... There used to be open-air buses, and you could go up a spiral staircase and sit up on top. Those were great, great days.

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

Life is a horizontal fall.

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.

What I particularly like about Broadway is the camaraderie and the friendship of other people in other shows. Everybody knows you're opening and cares about you. There's a real village atmosphere.

Godot is whatever it is in life that you are waiting for: 'I'm waiting to win the lottery. I'm waiting to fall in love'. For me, as a child, it was Christmas. At least that eventually came.

I have got prostate cancer, and I have to keep monitoring that. It's no problem, it's under control and I'm very cool about it, but other people are dying from it.

I'm not quite as cool as I would like to be, really.

I'm fortunate to be famous for two rather imposing characters like Magneto and Gandalf.

The strength of British theatre should be that these actors in their middle years know what they're doing and are good at it. Not rich, not famous, but making a living.

I'd never read 'Lord of the Rings' until I was asked to play Gandalf, so I didn't really know it was a frightfully famous book.