Until the eighteenth century, people believed that biblical paradise, the Garden of Eden, was a real place. It appeared on maps--located, ironically, at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in what is now modern-day Iraq.

Genius is not only a what or a who, it is a where. It is grounded in a place every single time.

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.

Haydn, Beethoven, Mozart, none of them were born in Vienna. They all moved there. It became a magnet, but what made it magnetized in the first place? There has to be a seed there. In the case of Vienna of about 1780, it was this deep-seated love of music.

Someone like Mozart moves from Salzburg to Vienna, where all of the sudden he finds this musical city that is not only asking for music, it's demanding music of him.

Compromise is a skill, and like all skills it atrophies from lack of use.

The coffee shop played a big role in Vienna of 1900. Rents were sky high, housing was difficult to come by, your apartment probably wasn't heated, and so you went to the coffee shop. You went to the coffee shop because it was warm, because it was great Viennese coffee, and you went for the conversation and the company.