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

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

Divine fires do not blaze each day but an artist functions in their afterglow, hoping for their recurrence.

Compose first, worry later.

Sooner or later you've heard all your best friends have to say. Then comes the tolerance of real love.

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

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