Music is the sole art which evokes nostalgia for the future.

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

Art's the biggest vanity: the assumption that one's view of peace or fright or beauty is permanently communicable.

If asked to list my ten favorite American fiction writers, Gail Godwin would be among them. In this, her latest . . . she evokes in a short book the long married life of two artists. Evenings at Five is a strong tale of love-after-death.

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.

Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children.

Anyone can be gay - it's no accomplishment - but only I can be me.