Whenever I came across something that influenced me, I wanted to be that. So it varied from an astronaut, airhostess, army girl, to truck driver. Once, I wanted to be a nun - my mother wanted me to change schools after that...

It [thought] is a mechanical thing and can solve only mechanical problems. But you want to use it to understand something living; that is the problem. It is not intended for that. Human problems are something living. You cannot use thinking to solve those problems.

? no sooner had you done something than someone else appeared who threatened to do it better.

It did dawn on me at the end of the series that he was something special.

Before you say you can't do something, try it.

Colonel Amir Salim: National Geographic is always welcome. They're the only Westerners who ever come to Pakistan without wanting to conquer something.

Any serious attempt to try to do something worthwhile is ritualistic.

Something traumatic happened to me when I was younger. I was with this old black woman, and she was very wise, very Alice Walker, The Color Purple...she looked at me and she says, "Baby...you know I used to be able to fly but I can't fly no more, baby. But baby, you...? You too fat to fly.

Before you say you can't do something, try it.

The usual devastating put-downs imply that a person is basically bad, rather than that he is a person who sometimes does bad things. Obviously, there is a vast difference between a "bad" person and a person who does something bad.
Besides, failure is an event, it is not a person — yesterday ended last night.

The most of my sufferings and sorrows were occasioned by my own unwillingness to be nothing, which I am, and by struggling to be something.

There is something refreshingly ironic about people lying on the beach contracting skin cancer in an attempt to acquire a purely illusory appearance of good health, while germ-laden medical waste washes up on the sand all around them. (entitled Surf's Down Forever, p. 207)

Nobody wants to be dancing to political songs. Every bit of music out there that’s making it into the mainstream is really about nothing. I wanted to see if I could write songs about something important and make it sound like nothing. And it kind of worked.

That she learned ballet not with the idea of becoming a full-fledged dancer. It was just to train my body and more for the sheer joy of learning something beautiful.

Lt. Kiyoshi Sato: Godzilla! I still have something to settle with you!

Let's get something to eat, I'm thirsty.