When I was young my Father used to tell me that the two most worthwhile pursuits in life were the pursuit of truth and of beauty and I believe that Alfred Nobel must have felt much the same when he gave these prizes for literature and the sciences.

When the soul looks out of its body it should see only beauty in its path. These are the sights we must hold in mind in order to move to a higher place.

Baalbek is so beautiful. It is the heart of beauty in the Middle East - I want to embrace these people with my music. I will try so hard for them. Their president is a Christian their prime minister is a Muslim. Music is for everyone.

It used to happen in villages and towns in China that they would have - I guess you'd call them beauty contests - where all of the women of a particular village or town would be seated behind these screens or curtains with only their feet showing.

We say we want to create beauty identity quality singularity. And yet maybe in truth these cities that we have are desired. Maybe their very characterlessness provides the best context for living.

Every article on these islands has an almost personal character which gives this simple life where all art is unknown something of the artistic beauty of medieval life.

I shall give you hunger and pain and sleepless nights. Also beauty and satisfactions known to few and glimpses of the heavenly life. None of these you shall have continually and of their coming and going you shall not be foretold.

These women whose antics we smirk at good-naturedly in the pap-traps put themselves out there at least partly on their beauty they are in showbiz and showing what they've got is part of their business as much as it is for male show-ponies from the Chippendales to George Clooney.

A lot of directors idealize their leading ladies or turn them into these objects of sexuality and beauty.

There are no better cosmetics than a severe temperance and purity modesty and humility a gracious temper and calmness of spirit and there is no true beauty without the signatures of these graces in the very countenance.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

The money is in a different league these days of course but I have special memories of the 60s and 70s which players today don't have. There wasn't the same celebrity attitude and media exposure. We had a bit more freedom.

I'm not going to take this defeatist attitude and listen to all this crap any more from all these people who have nothing except doomsday to predict.

What irritates me is the bland way people go around saying 'Oh our attitude has changed. We don't dislike these people any more.' But by the strangest coincidence they haven't taken away the injustice the laws are still on the books.

I will keep smiling be positive and never give up! I will give 100 percent each time I play. These are always my goals and my attitude.

It was just like a dream. I could have ended up with an album that's not all that different from anything else coming out of Nashville. Mutt made the difference. He took these songs my attitude my creativity and colored them in a way that is unique.

I developed a nutty attitude where I'd think If some guy really loves me he doesn't care if I'm fat. I'd come up with all these stupid reasons why it would be OK to be fat.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent subtle and sophisticated people with organized societies and great art.

Shadows sometimes people don't see shadows. The Chinese of course never paint them in pictures oriental art never deals with shadow. But I noticed these shadows and I knew it meant it was sunny.

Because most people are not sufficiently employed in themselves they run about loose hungering for employment and satisfy themselves in various supererogatory occupations. The easiest of these occupations which have all to do with making things already made is the making of people: it is called the art of friendship.

I'm very much into the costuming of any character that I portray and it's one of the great things about making movies is it's a collaborative art form so you get all these artists who are looking specifically about for this instance your character's costume and what that might tell about your character.

Many say an art dealer running a museum is a 'conflict of interest.' But maybe the art world has lived an artificial or unintentional lie all of these years when it comes to conflicts of interest.

When museums are built these days architects directors and trustees seem most concerned about social space: places to have parties eat dinner wine-and-dine donors. Sure these are important these days - museums have to bring in money - but they gobble up space and push the art itself far away from the entrance.