#quote about

“So few things blaze. So little is beautiful. Our world doesn’t seem equipped to contain its brilliance too long. Ecstasy is only recognizable when one has experienced pain. Beauty only exists when set against ugliness. Peace is not appreciated without the war ahead of it. How we wish that life could support only the good. But it vanishes when its opposite no longer exists as a setting. It is a white marble on unmelting snow. And Jimmy stands clear and unique in a world where much is synthetic and dishonest and drab. He came and rearranged our molecules.”

“At the end, you were no longer friends. Why'd it break up?”

“Well, several reasons. Without being too personal about it, I felt that the role Jimmy expected me to play in his life, I simply couldn’t play, which was that of a father”.

“It was during the filming of “Eden” that Jimmy met Pier Angeli. The strong fascination they had for one another developed into something fine and beautiful. Jimmy sought her out and tried to spend much of his time with her. When I asked him about her, he replied that she was a sensitive girl with a wonderful mind, someone who understood him and with whom he could be at ease, but, he insisted, it did not go beyond that.” - William Bast 

“My front door opened to his front door, and I could hear what went on in his quarters through the walls. What went on was Pier Angeli. But clearly that didn’t go well for Dean either; I could hear them boffing but more often arguing through the walls.” - Elia Kazan

“Although there were still other girls in his life, Jimmy began to talk about Pier with increasing frequency and seriousness. It was my private opinion that much of their attraction for each other lay in the differences between them, heightened by the romantically clandestine aura of their meetings.” - Joe Hyams 

“His favorite book was Lord Chesterfield’s Letters to His Son, which his mother had given him. Because his own life was so disorganized, he gave it to me for safekeeping. I’m still keeping it for him. 

What he gave me was infinitely more precious. He turned me in the right direction. There was never any romance between us; there was friendship; and that, too, is a kind of loving”.