Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.

Failure too is a form of death.

Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

Champagne, if you are seeking the truth, is better than a lie detector. It encourages a man to be expansive, even reckless, while lie detectors are only a challenge to tell lies successfully.

It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.

Human nature is not black and white but black and grey.

In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock!

In human relationships, kindness and lies are worth a thousand truths.

People talk about the courage of condemned men walking to the place of execution: sometimes it needs as much courage to walk with any kind of bearing towards another person's habitual misery.

If you have abandoned one faith, do not abandon all faith. There is always an alternative to the faith we lose. Or is it the same faith under another mask?