Greatness is not the effect of which inspiration is the cause. We are all inspired, but we are all not great.

Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Divine fires do not blaze each day but an artist functions in their afterglow, hoping for their recurrence.

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.

The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.

Nothing is a waste that makes a memory.

The truest family is the family of faith.

The kind of music I like depends very much on my mood.

The object of the Bible is not to tell how good men are, but how bad men can become good.

Savings will not make you rich. Only canny investments do that. The role of savings is to keep you from becoming poor.

Were I more conversant with literature and its great names, I could go on quoting them ad infinitum and acknowledge my debt for the merit you have been generous enough to find in my work

Forty-seven years -- and I find I mind it less and less.

There is wickedness in the intention of wickedness, even though it be not perpetrated in the act.

And givin' yourself to me can never be wrong

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

I listen to a lot of 80s stuff, like Owner of a Lonely Heart, by the group Yes. And Mr. Misters Broken Wings.