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

Why, after all, must everyone like music? That they are missing something is just the lover's opinion.

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.

All men are forced into one of two categories: those with eleven fingers and those without.

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

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

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.