“Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.”

“The past can't hurt you anymore, not unless you let it.”

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”

“You wear a mask for so long, you forget who you were beneath it.”

“Artists use lies to tell the truth. Yes, I created a lie. But because you believed it, you found something true about yourself.”

“Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”

“Everybody is special. Everybody. Everybody is a hero, a lover, a fool, a villain. Everybody. Everybody has their story to tell.”

“Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof.”

“People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”

“My experience of life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky.”

"Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks."

"Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be."

"Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years it was a splendid laugh!"

"Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see triumph."

"I know enough of the world now to have almost lost the capacity of being much surprised by anything"

"Every idiot who goes about with a 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."

"The cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him."

"I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together."

"It's in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present."

"I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished."

"We forge the chains we wear in life."

"Please, sir, I want some more."

"I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free."

"Never," said my aunt, "be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you."