“Doing nothing gives me great pleasure. And believe me, I succeed wonderfully in it.”

“I don't gamble, because winning a hundred dollars doesn't give me great pleasure. But losing a hundred dollars pisses me off. ”

“It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.”

“Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.”

“If I have succeeded at all in giving the complicated impression that Strickland made on me, it will not seem outrageous to say that I felt he was at once too great and too small for love.”

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed hasbeen, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seedthere, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”