"Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom."

"I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually seeking to fight his way back to happiness."

"It has always been difficult for Man to realize that his life is all an art. It has been more difficult to conceive it so than to act it so. For that is always how he has more or less acted it."

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."

"Wisdom principle 1 tells us that the journey of life is lesson 41."

"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well."

"The greatest deception is forgetting that the river of time shapes the stones of destiny."

"I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary."