To be successful in the world of art you must, of course, have talent, although very small talents have gone very far in this age. Just as the microphone gave volume to voices that had none, so does the science of press-agentry magnify limited skills into highly saleable properties.

the overwhelming majority of people who are engaged in the processes of thought and expression are Democrats because the essence of thought is exploration and diversity and change. It's impossible to have vision in art or government without risk, or the boldness and courage which produce risk. And this - in spite of what they call modern Republicanism - is the antithesis of true Republican thinking.

You mix the affluence of the white and the poverty of the black and you do not get a civilized society. Integration on an equal level is one thing. Mixing on an unequal level is another.

Generosity with strings is not generosity: it is a deal.

Surely the hold of great music on the listener is precisely this: that the listener is made whole; and at the same time part of an image of infinite grace and grandeur which is creation.

Self-restraint may be alien to the human temperament, but humanity without restraint will dig its own grave.

the car, by bisecting the human outline, diminishes it, producing a race of half-people in a motion not of their own making