“You should want to act only because you want to be led to something bigger in life.”

“You cannot afford to confine your studies to the classroom. The universe and all of history is your classroom.”

“You have to understand your best. Your best isn't Barrymore's best or Olivier's best or my best, but your own. Every person has his norm. And in that norm every person is a star. Olivier could stan...”

“You have to do something. If you do something, you become somebody. Even a daffodil does something, has a profession. It gives off scent, professionally.”

“You will only fail to learn if you do not learn from failing.”

“You will fail. That's great. Here's a secret for you - that's the only way you can learn. Learning has to cost you something. If you fail but learn something from your failure, you will grow.”

“Even the faded flower denies nothingness.”

“God is not a being among other beings, but the infinite Whither that makes possible the very functioning of our human spirit.”

“You see the first thing we love is a scene. For love at first sight requires the very sign of its suddenness; and of all things, it is the scene which seems to be seen best for the first time: a cu...”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make the...”

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

“A culture of unaccountability is a culture without incentive, and a culture without incentive is the death of critical and creative thinking.”