A nice blend of prediction and surprise seem to be at the heart of the best art.

I'm really a very weak musicologist. Wish it weren't so, but there's only so much you can dig deeply into in one lifetime, as if you hadn't noticed.

Composition has almost always been solitary.

What is full of redundancy or formula is predictably boring. What is free of all structure or discipline is randomly boring. In between lies art.

It's best to incorporate a broadly eclectic point of view, and let whatever moves you be your inspiration.

You repeat things because they're like your personal obsessions

As human beings we do change, grow, adapt, perhaps even learn and become wiser.

Love and compassion are the creating and sustaining elements of humanity, without them humanity will be inhumane.

My dad is a writer, and to see him always in front of a typewriter gave me the inspiration to write. He was my idol, my hero. I wanted to be just like him.

Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.

Pain or damage don't end the world.

Being fearless doesn't mean living a life devoid of fear, but living a life in which our fears don't hold us back

Believe me, when I say; There are no two powers That command the soul. One is God The other is the tide. -Anon From the novel Abarat

I often speak with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. When I speak with the Turkish president, I defend European positions. That is how we European partners must do things.

Is it more important to make sure that you have another Clinton or a woman in the White House than it is to have somebody who is a morally sound character and judgment?

There is no question that we must do more to secure our borders - but how we go about securing them is also important.

I am against all war.