I'm afraid to live any place but in expectation. I'm no life-risk.

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.

To keep our hearts open is probably the most urgent responsibility you have as you get older.

You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece.

As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.

People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.

I don't think there's any difference between a crush and profound love. I think the experience is that you dissolve your sentries and your battalions for a moment and you really do see that there is this unfixed free-flowing energy of emotion and thought between people, that it really is there.