. . . the great thing to learn about life is, first, not to do what you don't want to do, and, second, to do what you do want to do.

Life seems to be an experience in ascending and descending. You think you're beginning to live for a single aim - for self-development, or the discovery of cosmic truths - when all you're really doing is to move from place to place as if devoted primarily to real estate.

I have always suspected that too much knowledge is a dangerous thing. It is a boon to people who don't have deep feelings their pleasure comes from what they know. . . . But this only emphasizes the difference between the artist and the scholar.

Art to me was a state: it didn't need to be an accomplishment.