We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make of them.

Once a man has tasted creative action, then thereafter, no matter how safely he schools himself in patience, he is restive, acutely dissatisfied with anything else. He becomes as a lover to whom abstinence is intolerable.

If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta.

In a sick world, it is the first duty of the artist to get well.

Most novices picture themselves as masters - and are content with the picture. This is why there are so few masters.

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.

To understand a new idea, break an old habit.