I can almost always write music; at any hour of the twenty-four, if I put pencil to paper, music comes.

I forsee a marked deterioration in American musicand a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of the multiplication of the various music-reproducing machines

The vocal cord will be eliminated by a process of evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape.

My religion lies in my composition.

Dance as though no one is watching. Love as though you've never been hurt. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.

American teachers have one indisputable advantage over foreign ones; they understand the American temperament and can judge its unevenness, its lights and its shadows.

Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself.