For I have learned to look on nature not as in the hour of thoughtless youth but hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity.

Poetry fettered fetters the human race. Nations are destroyed or flourish in proportion as their poetry painting and music are destroyed or flourish.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from everyone loves music.

Kubrick's vision seemed to be that humans are doomed whereas Clarke's is that humans are moving on to a better stage of evolution.

The really courageous and bold thing is to make movies about human behaviour.

I like to think of myself as a fairly educated human being but I'm a very uneducated actor when it comes to movies directors producers actors for that matter.

Well the thing about great fictional characters from literature and the reason that they're constantly turned into characters in movies is that they completely speak to what makes people human.

I think people like to see the lives of artists that are legends. They always go through the dark periods and I think just as humans we like to see that and them coming out of it. I love those kinds of movies.

I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.

I think what a lot of action movies lose these days especially the ones that deal with fantasy is you stop caring at some point because you've lost human scale.

Listen I think movies serve many different purposes from those movies that are frivolous and just an entertainment to movies that just go to exploring the complexities of the human soul. Everything is valid if it's done with honesty and dignity and I actually do both of those types of movies in my career.

I think that's what distinguishes Schmidt really. In the movies now so much of what is appealing to an audience is the dramatic or has to do with science fiction and Schmidt is simply human. There's no melodrama there's no device It's just about a human being.

The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.

I get up in the morning do my e-mail I check my e-mails all day. I'll go online and I'll buy my books at Amazon.com but I don't want to buy all of them because I want to go to Duttons and I want to buy books from another human being.

Hezbollah's contempt for human suffering is total as it showed once again this morning when its rockets murdered two Israeli Arab children in Nazareth.

Mere humans who root through their refrigerators at three o'clock in the morning can only produce writing that matches what they do. And that includes me.

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.

Human beings are much bigger than just making money.

I think that what went wrong with religion is the same thing that went wrong with politics. Is that it became too money based and too controlling. It's just a weakness that we human beings have for control - we want one thing and then we want more and then we want more.

But there are too many people that make so much money at the cost of lives of other humans and for no reason but to make the money.

But human nature dictates that there will always be cheaters. That's inevitable. Where there's money involved and glory there are going to be people that cheat and there will always be ways to cheat.

We need to shift from an economic organizing principle for human civilization to a humanitarian organizing principle. Making money more important than your own children is a pathological way for an individual to run their affairs and it's a pathological way for a society to run its affairs.

My mom is in her mid-60s and has more energy and is more youthful than any human being I know. It's pretty incredible.