Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds.

The red and white and starry blue Is freedom's shield and hope.

I am happy now, to recall that I was not only his son but his companion, and whenever there was a hunting expedition or any other pleasure, I was always with him.

Dance as though no one is watching. Love as though you've never been hurt. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing.

A band is only as good as its euphonium section.

I have always believed that 98% of a student's progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher.

From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else.

Remember always that the composer's pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty.

There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

In Hollywood, no one knows anything.

Clarification is not to clarify things. It is to put one’s self in the clear (Sir Humphrey Appleby)

There is only one truth, and that is love, all others are a byproduct.

Our thoughts and imaginations are much more powerful than our feelings or actions.

I definitely believe that the so-called American decline is greatly exaggerated.

I was moving among two groups... who had almost ceased to communicate at all, who in intellectual, moral, and psychological climate had so little in common that... one might have crossed the ocean.

I shall continue to invent new anti-slavery programmes around the world.

I don't have control over everything; God has control over everything and I trust him, so I don't worry.

We have to learn to die in every moment in order to be fully alive.

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.