As far as the execution is concerned ... the most frequent and most serious mistake is to follow the music instead of preceding it.

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.

The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.

Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

The art of music is so deep and profound that to approach it very seriously only is not enough. One must approach music with a serious rigor and, at the same time, with a great, affectionate joy.

Do not take up music unless you would rather die than not do so.

Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.

Without discipline, there can be no freedom.

Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for.

Don't you ever mind, " she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?

Everything in me feels fluttering and free, like I could take off from the ground at any second. Music, I think, he makes me feel like music.

No monument was ever erected in favor of a critic.

Everybody interprets things differently with their own perception, and I want poetry to pull out of them their own feelings.

I'm a lot better coach when I have really good players

I'll have you know that I am not a failed Third Division footballer. I am a failed Second Division footballer.

There are infinite modes of expression in the world of art, and to insist that only by one road can the artist attain his ends is to limit him.

If you really want to find out what you're capable of, you cannot put limits on yourself, and you definitely cannot be cautious.

Occasionally people will look at me and do a double take and theyll look at me like theyre trying to think where they know me from.

An awful lot of storytelling isn't really about making people understand - it's about making people care.