“The Unexpected always comes at the most awkward times.”

Letter to F.W Weber (1950); published in New York—Pennsylvania Collector (8 August 1991)
Context: How do ideas come? What a question! If they come of their own accord, they are apt to arrive at the most unexpected time and place. For the most part the place is out of doors, for up in this northern wilderness when nature puts on a show it is an inspiring one. There seem to be magic days once in a while, with some rare quality of light that hold a body spellbound: In sub-zero weather there will be a burst of unbelievable color when the mountain turns a deep purple, a thing it refuses to do in summer. Then comes the hard part: how to plan a picture so as to give to others what has happened to you. To render in paint an experience, to suggest the sense of light and color, air and space, there is no such thing as sitting down outside and trying to make a “portrait” of it. It lasts for only a minute, for one thing, and it isn’t an inspiration that can be copied on the spot...

Final line of the published script.
8 1/2 Women

Source: The Iron Hunt

Source: Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances

Interview with Joseph Pearce, Sr. (2003)
Context: We are exiting from communism in a most unfortunate and awkward way. It would have been difficult to design a path out of communism worse than the one that has been followed. Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme. The name of "reform" simply covers what is latently a process of the theft of the national heritage.

Source: It Chooses You

Source: The Blood of Olympus

Trotzky's Diary in Exile — 1935 (1958)

Source: Stargazer