Quotes About Perspective

No hay nada en la vida que sea solo bueno o solo malo.

I would never read a book if it were possible for me to talk half an hour with the man who wrote it.

There are blessed intervals when I forget by one means or another that I am President of the United States.

He is not a true man of the world who knows only the present fashions of it.

Sex is like having dinner: sometimes you joke about the dishes, sometimes you take the meal seriously.

All people know the same truth. Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.

When a film is reviled, you open a film and people say "Oh, it's the stupidest thing, it's the worst movie." You think: oh, nobody's going to ever speak to you again. But, it doesn't happen. Nobody cares. You know, they read it and they say "Oh, they hated your film." You care, at the time. But they don't. Nobody else cares.

The key here, I think, is to not think of death as an end. But ... but ... think of it more as a very effective way of cutting down on your expenses.

Every hooker I ever speak to tells me that it beats the hell out of waitressing.

My relationship with death remains the same -- I'm strongly against it.

I think that the tendency for most people is to fall back on a comic interpretation of things -- because things are so sad, so terrible. If you didn't laugh you'd kill yourself.

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That's the two categories. The horrible are like, I don't know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don't know how they get through life. It's amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you're miserable, because that's very lucky, to be miserable.

How could I not have known that there are little things the size of "Planck length" in the universe, which are a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter? Imagine if you dropped one in a dark theater how hard it would be to find.

I think if you have a comic perspective, almost anything that happens you tend to put through a comic filter. It's a way of coping in the short term, but has no long term effect and requires constant, endless renewal. Hence people talk of comics who are "always on." It's like constantly drugging your sensibility so you can get by with less pain.

I recently turned 60 years old. Practically a third of my life is over.

[Of bisexuality:] It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Yes, but–as empty experiences go–it's one of the best!

Cloquet hated reality but realized it was still the only place to get a good steak.

Is sex dirty? Only when it's being done right.

Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats.

I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

I'm not afraid of death; I just don't want to be there when it happens.