My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.

Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.

Music is part of being human.

When I was five, I am told, and asked what my favorite things in the world were, I answered, smoked salmon and Bach.

The power of music and the plasticity of the brain go together very strikingly, especially in young people.

There is among doctors, in acute hospitals at least, a presumption of stupidity in their patients.

I think the brain is a dynamic system in which some parts control or suppress other parts. And if perhaps one has damage in one of the controlling or suppressing areas, then you may have the emergence or eruption of something, whether it is a seizure, a criminal trait - - or even a sudden musical passion.