All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.

The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.

Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life

"You look ridiculous if you dance

Have you ever hoped for something? And held out for it against all the odds? Until everything you did was ridiculous?

I only have so much willpower, Helen," he whispered. "And since you apparently sleep in the most ridiculously transparent tank top I've ever seen, I'm going to have to ask you to get under the covers before I do something stupid.

Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you're falling to the floor crying thinking, "I am falling to the floor crying," but there's an element of the ridiculous to it - you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you're on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn't paint it very well.

At school there was an annual school disco and I'd be standing in my bedroom wondering what to wear for hours on end. Eventually I'd arrive at a decision that was just the most ridiculous costume you could have ever devised - I think it was probably knitted Christmas jumpers on top of buttoned-up white shirts.

Letting go of things and not being afraid of being ridiculous or over the top - I think that's the main thing for me to work on.

And where I excel is ridiculous sickening work ethic. You know while the other guy's sleeping? I'm working.

The 'wisdom of the crowds' is the most ridiculous statement I've heard in my life. Crowds are dumb.

Ridiculous stuff happens when I travel.

All men are somewhat ridiculous and grotesque just because they are men and in this respect artists might well be regarded as man multiplied by two. So it is was and shall be.

Generally speaking the errors in religion are dangerous those in philosophy only ridiculous.

I think that giving mindless praise is ridiculous. But I understand why parents do it. They want their kids to feel good about themselves. But parents are never going to teach their children true positive self esteem by praising everything they do.

That's the way it is with poetry: When it is incomprehensible it seems profound and when you understand it it is only ridiculous.

I published privately a collection of my serious poetry I had written over the years. I only published 50 copies which I gave to friends in a special deluxe edition. It was ridiculously expensive but I'm glad that I did it.

When I was asked to be Writer in Residence at Edinburgh I thought you can't teach poetry. This is ridiculous.

I don't know any form of art or entertainment that can affect people the way movies can. I know it sounds ridiculous but they can change your world. They can change your views.

For movies to get greenlit solely based on the success of other movies that have a lot of women in them? It's so ridiculous to me.

I have been pregnant in so many movies it's ridiculous.

I've found myself at one in the morning just sitting at my desk spending an hour returning emails from the day until like two in the morning. It's ridiculous I should be sleeping or dreaming or reading a novel.

I saw Deep Purple live once and I paid money for it and I thought 'Geez this is ridiculous.' You just see through all that sort of stuff. I never liked those Deep Purples or those sort of things. I always hated it. I always thought it was a poor man's Led Zeppelin.