There's no one on the island telling them they're not good enough, so they just go ahead and sing and paint and write.

The coffeehouse is good for genius, and the Viennese coffeehouse is a classic case. Freud had his favorite coffee shop, and so did Gustav Klimt.

A Mozart symphony is very much like a Pixar movie - in the sense that Pixar movies are hugely successful because they operate on several levels at the same time.

Where we are is vital to who we are.

Don't forget that Mozart worked on commission. He almost always would write something if he knew exactly who was paying for it and where it would be performed. So you can't really separate the creation of genius from the appreciation of it.

As I railed on and on, I became increasingly energied and excited by my own misery and misanthropy until I reached a kind of orgasm of negativity.'... The Brits don't merely enjoy misery, they get off on it.

A mystery is not a puzzle waiting to be solved, but rather something for which there is no human solution. Mystery's offspring is not frustration but awe, and that sense of awe grows in tandem with knowledge.