A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows.

And time itself? Time was a never-ending medium that stretched into the future and the past - except there was no future and no past but an infinite number of brackets extending either way each bracket enclosing its single phase of the Universe.

I am not interested in the past except as the road to the future.

Like many other touchstones of twenty-first-century pop culture 'The Sopranos' was hatched in the late Nineties predicting a future that never arrived. It was designed for a decade that would be just like the Nineties except more so in an America that enjoyed seeing itself as smarter and braver and freer than ever before.

We're at the crossroads. Down one road is a European centralized bureaucratic socialist welfare system in which politicians and bureaucrats define the future. Down the other road is a proud solid reaffirmation of American exceptionalism.

I have no agenda except to be funny. Neither I or the writers profess to offer any worldly wisdom.

Everything seems fine until you're about 40. Then something is definitely beginning to go wrong. And you look in the mirror with your old habit of thinking 'While I accept that everyone grows old and dies it's a funny thing but I'm an exception to that rule.'

All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats.

Everybody knows how to raise children except the people who have them.

My last public performance for money was in 1967. For free it was 1972 with the exception of two little one-shot one-song things. But that's just for friends out of friendship for the people involved and also because it was fun.

There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you except that which he gains by kindness and attachment.

Liberals it has been said are generous with other peoples' money except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer to be generous with other people's freedom and security.

Men are never really willing to die except for the sake of freedom: therefore they do not believe in dying completely.

The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

I had no accomplishments except surviving. But that isn't enough in the community where I came from because everybody was doing it. So I wasn't prepared for America where everybody is glowing with good teeth and good clothes and food.

No matter where I've been overseas the food stinks except in Italy.

I learned very early that our health is always impaired by some excess either of food or abstinence and I never had any physician except myself.

I love dogs. They live in the moment and don't care about anything except affection and food. They're loyal and happy. Humans are just too damn complicated.

Money was never a big motivation for me except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game.

I know not why there is such a melancholy feeling attached to the remembrance of past happiness except that we fear that the future can have nothing so bright as the past.

You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.

Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.

Of course Hollywood is still making some excellent pictures which reflect the great artistry that made Hollywood famous throughout the world but these films are exceptions judging from box office returns and press reviews.

I don't know how to construct a career that'll make me famous. Except maybe get my ears pinned back get my teeth done and go to America. But then I'll be competing with billions of actors who haven't got false teeth and who are 25.