Unwise quotes

  • What should our second generation have done, what should it do with the knowledge of the horrors of the extermination of the Jews? We should not believe we can comprehend the incomprehensible, we may not compare the incomparable, we may not inquire because to inquire is to make the horrors an object of discussion, even if the horrors themselves are not questioned, instead of accepting them as something in the face of which we can only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt. Should we only fall silent in revulsion, shame and guilt? To what purpose?

  • It wasn't on my agenda, but the thing about getting important awards is it makes the adventure of your career have a little more possibility. I think just what's happened so far is already making the opportunities more interesting, even though I'm at the twilight of my career of like 48 years.

  • I think Andy Kaufman is to comedy what the Velvet Underground was to music - it's like, 80 thousand records sold, but everybody who bought one started a band.

  • Go beyond reason to love - it is safe. It is the only safety. Love all you can, and when you are ready all will be shown to you. The state of mind that most needs enlightenment is the one that sees human beings as needing to be guided or enlightened. The sin that most needs to be loved and forgiven is the state of mind that sees human beings as sinners.

  • When anyone seriously pursues an art - painting, poetry, sculpture, composing - over twenty or thirty years, the sustained discipline carries the artist down to the countryside of grief, and that descent, resisted so long proves invigorating. . . . As I've gotten older, I find I am able to be nourished more by sorrow and to distinguish it from depression.

  • I had a terrible job letting me do anything that wasn't comedy.

  • Or that I couldn't stand to watch anything bad happen to you, because it was like it was happening to me too. Is that love?

  • A wise son makes a glad father, But a foolish son is the grief of his mother.

  • Now, everybody, I suppose, is aware that in recent years the silly business of divination by dreams has ceased to be a joke and has become a very serious science.

  • It's the job of a manager not to light the fire of motivation, but to create an environment to let each person's personal spark of motivation blaze.