Music, not being made up of objects nor referring to objects, is intangible and ineffable; it can only be as it were inhaled by the spirit: the rest is silence.

Of true knowledge at any time, a good part is merely convenient, necessary indeed to the worker, but not to an understanding of his subject: One can judge a building without knowing where to buy the bricks; one can understand a violin sonata without knowing how to score for the instrument. The work may in fact be better understood without a knowledge of the details of its manufacture, of attention to these tends to distract from meaning and effect.

Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and eliptically, skipping entire functions to get things done.

The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.

Intellect has nothing to do with equality except to respect it as a sublime convention.

Americans began by loving youth, and now, out of adult self-pity, they worship it.

Tennis belongs to the individualistic past - a hero, or at most a pair of friends or lovers, against the world.