Genius is the ability to act rightly without precedent - the power to do the right thing the first time.
Art always penetrates the particular fissures in one's psychic life.
Compared to the unleashed forces of warfare and of faith, Mount Vesuvius was kinder to the legacy of antiquity.
I believe that nothing comes of nothing, even in Shakespeare. I wanted to know where he got the matter he was working with and what he did with that matter.
Through reading literature we can make ghosts speak to us, and we can speak back to them.
There's a huge amount of work on Adam and Eve, from the ancient world to the present. Saint Augustine was obsessed with them. I don't know if it helps my research, but I get a big kick out of Mark Twain, who wrote "The Diaries of Adam and Eve. " He wrote very funny stuff on them. I sometimes read things that are loosely related to what I'm thinking and writing about.
The Shakespeare that Shakespeare became is the name that's attached to these astonishing objects that he left behind.
So long as peace is not attained by law (so argue the advocates of armaments) the military protection of a country must not be undermined, and until such is the case disarmament is impossible.
I started drawing comics, and at first I was very influenced by the whole pop art movement, you know, Batman was on TV and all that pop art stuff? But then my next influence was in 1966, or maybe it was '65, I don't know. Somebody showed me a copy of the "East Village Other", which was an underground newspaper. And. . . it had comics in it! And they weren't superhero comics.
Fling away your soul once for all, your own small self; if you will find it again. Count not even on immortality.
Phin spared a moment of sympathy for Frank until he looked back and saw him at the bar, leaning into Clea’s cleavage. Get a grip, Frank, he thought, and then he looked down Sophie’s dress and thought, Never mind, Frank.