“Unless you are terribly, terribly careful, you run the danger-- without even knowing it is happening to you-- of slipping into the fatal error of reflecting the public taste instead of creating it. Your responsibility is to the public consciousness, not to the public view of itself.”

“We proceed in this society of ours on the possibly valid but untrue assumption that the public knows what it wants-- indeed, that it is given sufficient information about what is available to make such a judgment. And then we jump, irresponsibly and absurdly, to the notion that there is a valid relationship between what the public wants and what it should want.”

“If you have no wounds, how can you know if you're alive?”

“You're alive only once, as far as we know, and what could be worse than getting to the end of your life and realizing you hadn't lived it?”

“What I mean by an educated taste is someone who has the same tastes that I have.”

“You...you've been here quite a long time, haven't you?"What? Oh...yes. Ever since I married What's-her-name. Uh, Martha. Even before that. Forever. Dashed hopes, and good intentions. Good, better, best, bested. How do you like that for a declension, young man?”

“Martha: Oh, I like your anger. I think that's what I like about you most. Your anger.”