There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and at forty-eight

The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.

It is the business of the artist to make humanity aware of itself.

Genius... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

If the individual, or heretic, gets hold of some essential truth, or sees some error in the system being practiced, he commits so many marginal errors himself that he is worn out before he can establish his point.

I once saw a small child go to an electric light switch as say, Mamma, can I open the light? She was using the age-old language of exploration, the language of art.

Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.