“Perhaps to be able to learn things quickly isn't everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people… Lots of clever people have done harm and have been wicked.”

“People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.”

“I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.”

“I try to deal with things that maybe other people haven't thought about, emptiness, making a painting that isn't a painting. For years people have been concerned with what goes on inside the frame. Well maybe there is something going on outside the frame that could be considered an artistic idea.”

“I fancy that most people who think at all have done a great deal of their thinking in the first fourteen years.”

“My idea of good company, Mr. Eliot, is the company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”

“The people who have done the most ghastly things overseas, the ones who don't fight to the death, we would all like to see them never able to do anyone any harm ever again. Locking them up and throwing away the key would be a great idea.”

“The silence wasn't uncomfortable or hostile but exhausted--the quiet of people who have a great deal to think about but not a hell of a lot to say.”

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”

“I'd like to protect children, too, but… is everything worth sacrificing to that? I mean, drugs have done a lot of good. […] They've midwived a lot of good ideas… lot of great songs, you know? I think "Penny Lane" is worth 10 dead kids. […] I think Dark Side of the Moon is worth 100 dead kids. There, I said it.”