As a lifelong pacifist, Quaker, and a gay man, I despair that gays and lesbians are expending energy trying to get into the military when they should be using that same energy getting rid of the military completely.

The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.

Bel canto is to opera what pole-vaulting is to ballet.

Minor artists borrow, great ones steal.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.

There are no fascinating people, only their works are fascinating.