No one can have an idea once he starts really listening.

Look at everything. Don't close your eyes to the world around you. Look and become curious and interested in what there is to see.

Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.

Good music can act as a guide to good living.

People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.

After I had been studying with him for two years, Schoenberg said, ‘In order to write music, you must have a feeling for harmony.’ I explained to him that I had no feeling for harmony. He then said that I would always encounter an obstacle, that it would be as though I came to a wall through which I could not pass. I said, ‘In that case I will devote my life to beating my head against that wall.’

It's useless to play lullabies for those who cannot sleep.