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

Artists, by definition innocent, don't steal. But they do borrow without giving back.

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

Quarrels in France strengthen a love affair, in America they end it.

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.

The same piece of music alters at each hearing. But oh, the need to repeat and repeat and repeat unchanged the sexual experience.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.