Things are beautiful if you love them.

An ugly sight, a man who is afraid.

Love is, above all, the gift of oneself.

What you get free costs too much.

Men create real miracles when they use their God-given courage and intelligence.

It takes a certain courage and a certain greatness to be truly base.

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.

Our entire life - consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are.

Any film, or to me any creative endeavour, no matter who you're working with, is, in many cases, a wonderful experience.

When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.

My whole life has been movies and religion. That's it. Nothing else.

I'm sad to see celluloid go, there's no doubt. But, you know, nitrate went, by the way, in 1971. If you ever saw a nitrate print of a silent film and then saw an acetate print, you'd see a big difference, but nobody remembers anymore. The acetate print is what we have. Maybe. Now it's digital.

I love studying Ancient History and seeing how empires rise and fall, sowing the seeds of their own destruction.

The cinema began with a passionate, physical relationship between celluloid and the artists and craftsmen and technicians who handled it, manipulated it, and came to know it the way a lover comes to know every inch of the body of the beloved. No matter where the cinema goes, we cannot afford to lose sight of its beginnings.

A lot of what I'm obsessed with is the relationship and the dynamics between people and the family, particularly brothers and their father.

Our world is so glutted with useless information, images, useless images, sounds, all this sort of thing. It's a cacophony, it's like a madness I think that's been happening in the past twenty-five years. And I think anything that can help a person sit in a room alone and not worry about it is good.

Working with HBO was an opportunity to experience creative freedom and 'long-form development' that filmmakers didn't have a chance to do before the emergence of shows like 'The Sopranos.'

If your mother cooks Italian food, why should you go to a restaurant?

Too little is it considered, while we gaze on aristocratic beauty, how much good food, soft lying, warm wrapping, ease of mind, have to do with the attractions which command our admiration.

Come live in my heart, and pay no rent.

Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye.

Clarity is the counterbalance of profound thoughts.

Patience is the art of hoping.

The art of pleasing is the art of deception.

Our failings sometimes bind us to one another as closely as could virtue itself.

There is nothing that fear and hope does not permit men to do.

Great thoughts come from the heart.

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.

If I could be doing anything, I'd be laying on the floor in my birthday suit eating junk food and watching something dumb on TV.

You leave home to seek your fortune and, when you get it, you go home and share it with your family.

Completeness? Happiness? These words don't come close to describing my emotions. There truly is nothing I can say to capture what motherhood means to me, particularly given my medical history.

I made numerous attempts to find a way to do it all, to be a creative singer, songwriter, producer, and to be the mother, daughter, sister, lover, wife. And the thing about music is, with me, that she's a harsh mistress. She does not come to me in the midst of stress.

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.

Be not a slave of words.

The fearful unbelief is unbelief in yourself.

The first duty of man is to conquer fear; he must get rid of it, he cannot act till then.

The three great elements of modern civilization, Gun powder, Printing, and the Protestant religion.

Wonder is the basis of worship.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, and its power of endurance - the cheerful man will do more in the same time, will do it; better, will preserve it longer, than the sad or sullen.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

The old cathedrals are good, but the great blue dome that hangs over everything is better.

He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

Silence is as deep as eternity, speech a shallow as time.