Ruin seize thee, ruthless king! Confusion on thy banners wait! Though fann’d by Conquest’s crimson wing, They mock the air with idle state.

Any fool may write a most valuable book by chance, if he will only tell us what he heard and saw with veracity.

As to posterity, I may ask what has it ever done to oblige me?

England, so long mistress of the sea, Where winds and waves confess her sovereignty, Her ancient triumphs yet on high shall bear And reign the sovereign of the conquered air.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathom’d caves of ocean bear: Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Poe is the only impeccable writer. He was never mistaken.

An attitude of permanent indignation signifies great mental poverty. Politics compels it votaries to take that line and you can see their minds growing more impoverished every day, from one burst of righteous indignation to the next.

The trouble with our age is that it is all too clear to us.

Serious people have few ideas. People with ideas are never serious.

Nothing beautiful can be summarized.

A difficulty is a light. An insurmountable difficulty is a sun.

Everything is a system, and the system is everything.

A poet is a man who lives in the world of words.

I lived in a small town. It was 2,000 people in Canada. A little river that went through it and we swam in the – you know, there was a lot of water around. Niagara Falls was about four or five miles away.

My job as a filmmaker is to create a world that’s believable enough for the audience to get lost in.

I like the evening in India, the one magic moment when the sun balances on the rim of the world, and the hush descends, and ten thousand civil servants drift homeward on a river of bicycles, brooding on the Lord Krishna and the cost of living.

What I’ve learned is that technology is nothing if you don’t have an emotional connection to what you’re doing.

Writing a screenplay, for me, is like juggling. It’s like, how many balls can you get in the air at once? All those ideas have to float out there to a certain point, and then they’ll crystallize into a pattern.

We’re not creating a movie; we’re creating an experience.

I guess Titanic because it made the most money. No, I’m kidding. I don’t really have a favorite. Maybe Terminator because that was the film that was the first one back when I was essentially a truck driver.

Movies are like an ocean. They’re a mass of water, and you have to navigate through it with a good script and a great cast.

James Cameron doesn’t do what James Cameron does for James Cameron. James Cameron does what James Cameron does because James Cameron is… James Cameron.

What are you gonna do, talk the alien to death?

Inspiration can hit you in the head at any time in any context. It could happen in a conversation. Talking to someone at a party, you can get an idea. But you’ve got to remember those inspirations.

Here’s my philosophy in life: If there’s a fire, you put it out. If there’s a flood, you fill sandbags and you build a dike. You roll up your sleeves and you get to work.

The film industry is about saying ‘no’ to people, and inherently you cannot take ‘no’ for an answer.

Rose: But now you know there was a man named Jack Dawson and that he saved me… in every way that a person can be saved.

People call me a perfectionist, but I’m not. I’m a rightist. I do something until it’s right, and then I move on to the next thing.

The nation that leads in renewable energy will be the nation that leads the world.

There are many talented people who haven’t fulfilled their dreams because they over thought it, or they were too cautious, and were unwilling to make the leap of faith.

Pick up a camera. Shoot something. No matter how small, no matter how cheesy, no matter whether your friends and your sister star in it. Put your name on it as director. Now you’re a director. Everything after that you’re just negotiating your budget and your fee.

You can’t discover light, by analyzing the dark.

Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.

Your reputation is in the hands of others. That’s what the reputation is. You can’t control that. The only thing you can control is your character.

I am thankful to all those who said no. It’s because of them, I did it myself.

There are no accidents. There is only some purpose that we haven’t yet understood.

I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I’m not.

When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that’s what’s inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what is inside.

If you have passion, there is no need for excuses because your enthusiasm will trump any negative reasoning you might come up with. Enthusiasm makes excuses a nonissue.

Most people are searching for happiness. They’re looking for it. They’re trying to find it in someone or something outside of themselves. That’s a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way you think.

If you don’t make peace with your past, it will keep showing up in your present.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there’s nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.

With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.

Victory isn’t measured by how many battles you win, but by the long-term results.

It’s critical that we continue to engage with our allies.

We must never be afraid to take risks in the pursuit of victory.

The United States has a moral obligation to help those who cannot help themselves.

You need a clear sense of purpose in everything you do.

When someone with a rural accent says, “I don’t know much about politics,” zip up your pockets.

We must always be vigilant and prepared for the worst.

Our military must be as agile and adaptable as our enemies.

Watch the growth of middle level management. Don’t automatically fill vacant jobs. Leave some positions unfilled for 6-8 months to see what happens. You will find you won’t need to fill some of them.

You have to be ready for the unexpected.

Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers – they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.

Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

Keep your sense of humor. As General Joe Stillwell said, ‘The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind’.

Don’t speak ill of your predecessors or successors. You didn’t walk in their shoes.

Don’t be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it.

Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

Don’t think of yourself as indispensable or infallible. As Charles De Gaulle said, the cemeteries of the world are full of indispensable men.

If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much.

Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.

Theatre is an invitation to think, feel, and reflect.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is the freedom to be who you truly are.

Dream big, work hard, and never give up. You have the power to create your own destiny.

I don’t want to tell people what to think; I want them to think.

Every play I write comes from some kind of personal frustration, something that’s been brewing inside me.

Insofar as I’m good at directing, it’s because I’ve become a writer.

The only way to find true peace is to learn to accept yourself and others just as they are.

We are all caught in a struggle between the private and the public, the individual and the collective.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

Trying to be a socialist and a libertarian is obviously a very difficult balancing act, which nobody has pulled off too successfully in this century.

If the purpose of the stumpy little NFT theatre under Waterloo Bridge is not to acquaint young audiences with Ozu, with Ophuels, with D. W. Griffith and with Agnes Varda, then what exactly does it exist for?

Love is a choice, not just a feeling. It requires commitment and effort.

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

You cant get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

Children always turn to the light.

It’s extraordinary how much information can be contained in silence.

When you get older, then you feel death not at the end of the road, but death all around you, in everything. Life is saturated with death. I feel death everywhere.

Writing plays is a way of exploring the darkness, the things you cannot explain or articulate.

The difficulty with writing is that it’s so solitary. You never know whether you’re doing it right.

Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of mercury in a barometer, indicate little else than the variability of the weather.

The characters I play often have a sense of innocence and quirkiness that I find appealing.

People don’t always realize how hard we work to make something look effortless.

You can be funny in different ways—whether it’s physical comedy or just your delivery.

’30 Rock’ is one of the best things on TV, I think.

In some ways, it’s harder to be a comic actress than a dramatic one.

In addition to having a good partnership with a good doctor, you have to do some of the work yourself. Go online, read about it, and find out what you can tolerate.

I have a disease, but I also have a lot of other things.