To see itself through, music must have idea or magic. ... Music with neither dies young though rich.

If a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.

An artist doesn't necessarily have deeper feelings than other people, but he can express these feelings. He is like everyone else-only more so! He speaks with a Formal Sigh.

Love is a mystery which, when solved, evaporates. The same holds for music.

Perfection is no more a requisite to art than to heroes. Frigidaires are perfect. Beauty limps. My frigidaire has had to be replaced.

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.