It would be nice to hear someone accidentally whistle something of mine, somewhere, just once.

I can't live one day without hearing music, playing it , studying it , or thinking about it .

To be a success as a Broadway composer, you must be Jewish or gay. I'm both.

Einstein said that "the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious." So why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?

Life without music is meaningless, music without life is academic.

In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.

Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own.