Culture is everything you don't have to do.

I have lived in countries that were coming out of conflict: Ireland, South Africa, the Czech republic. People there are overflowing with energy.

Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Everywhere I go, your beauty spills into my day. The trees were never this verdant. The birdsong never this sweet.

J.R.R. Tolkien told a questioning correspondent, life's purpose is to know, praise, and thank God.

I don't think the ongoing negotiations with the Taliban will yield a positive result

To persuade is more trouble than to dominate, and the powerful seldom take this trouble if they can avoid it.

I couldn't live without the genius of Stephen Sondheim, be it not just West Side Story,but Follies,Company,Sweeney Todd,Passion.You can go on and on.

The arithmetical symbols are written diagrams and the geometrical figures are graphic formulas.

Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.

I know now one thing only matters in these days... true love... love and love alone.

Meanness is the one thing I do get upset about on those rare occasions when I see it.

I don't want to sound superficial, but when I go see a movie myself, I'd rather look at Tom Cruise than some shmo with a beer belly