What the common man cannot understand he hates.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create - so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.

there's two kinds of folk in the world, just like there's two kinds of life in a seed. Something sends one kind up to hunt its food in the light and air, and sends the other kind down into the earth to make the roots.

We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won't let them into our country.

Every event has had its cause, and nothing, not the least wind that blows, is accident or causeless.

An Englishman is never afraid of being laughed at. He just thinks the other fellow is a fool. But Americans still can't risk anybody laughing at them.

music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful.