Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.
In music the present is extended.
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.
Bel canto is to opera what pole-vaulting is to ballet.
composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.