One faces the future with one's past

The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - - - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work.