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

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

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

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.

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

The Great don't innovate, they fertilize seeds planted by lackeys, they leave to others the inhaling of the flowers whose roots they've manured. A deceptive memory may be the key to their originality.

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