One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum, in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.

The chances of each of us coming into existence are infinitesimally small, and even though we shall all die some day, we should count ourselves fantastically lucky to get our decades in the sun.

There is no fixed physical reality, no single perception of the world, just numerous ways of interpreting world views as dictated by one's nervous system and the specific environment of our planetary existence.

I can still remember the afternoon, on my 15th birthday, when I opened up 'The Virgin and the Gypsy,' D.H. Lawrence's novella, in my tiny cell in boarding school, and whole worlds of possibility opened out that I had never guessed existed. The language was on fire and sang of liberation.

We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty.

Poetry and beauty are always making peace. When you read something beautiful you find coexistence; it breaks walls down.

Right after 'Raymond' I had a world-is-my-oyster attitude, but I found out I don't like oysters. I had this existential emptiness. 'What is my purpose? Who am I?' I had a big identity crisis.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

An artist never works under ideal conditions. If they existed, his work wouldn't exist, for the artist doesn't live in a vacuum. Some sort of pressure must exist. The artist exists because the world is not perfect. Art would be useless if the world were perfect, as man wouldn't look for harmony but would simply live in it.

I think in art, but especially in films, people are trying to confirm their own existences.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.

When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am, who we are, what we're capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness. I'm trying for that. But I'm also trying for the language. I'm trying to see how it can really sound. I really love language. I love it for wate it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence. And then it allows us to laugh, allows us to show wit. Real wit is shown in language. We need language.

I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire a thing or to love a thing intensely is to place yourself in a vulnerable position, to be a possible, if not a probable, loser of what you most want. Let's leave it like that. That block has always been there and always will be, and my chance of getting, or achieving, anything that I long for will always be gravely reduced by the interminable existence of that block.

Existence is a series of footnotes to a vast, obscure, unfinished masterpiece.

No one ever understand Faith, but fate was what she was experiencing now, an inexplicable immersion in the blackest night. It only existed because she believed in it. Miracles could not be explained either but they existed for those who believe in them.

It is a foolish thing for people to look for a reason to live because existence itself is so valuable that there is no need for a reason to live! Stop looking for reasons to live and enjoy the mysterious gift called life!

"Until a great awakening moment comes, we lead our lives in utter ignorance. We agonize over our existence and circumstances. We refuse to see what we can do to make this world a better place.

There is a life pumping blessing in every setback. It's not come to end you. It's come to redefine your entire existence.

Endure your existence.

Make the most of your existence, that is all there is.

What is existence? Selflessness. What is life? Selflessness. What is civilization? Selflessness.

Enlightenment leads to an enjoyment of existence.

To breathe, eat, mate and sleep, ain't existence, to help, heal, lift and light, that's existence.