Life without music is unthinkable.

Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time... The wait is simply too long.

Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action. We reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great.

I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us, all of you, are endowed with the powers of fantasy.

When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.

Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.