Heaven...a place where everything that is not music is silence.

It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.

A man's real belief is that which he lives by. What a man believes is the thing he does, not the thing he thinks.

Never tell a child 'you have a soul.' Teach him, you are a soul; you have a body.

If instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give.

Forgiveness unleashes joy. It brings peace. It washes the slate clean. It sets all the highest values of love in motion.

Any faith in Him, however small, is better than any belief about Him, however great.

No man ever sank under the burden of the day. It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burden of today that the weight is more than a man can bear.

To be trusted is a greater compliment than being loved.

It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another.

How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset.

Life is an adventure. No-one knows if you can do it but yourself. Set a high bar.

I was enjoying the great human trophy hunt and, looking back, it scares the hell out of me

The word liberal distinguishes whatever nourishes the mind and spirit from the training which is merely practical or professional or from the trivialities which are no training at all.

I only write music for myself, I don't try and appeal to anyone else.

Writing is the passageway, the entrance, the exit, the dwelling place of the other in me.

We didn't talk much. But we didn't need to.

Each beat of your heart is a small miracle, you know, so don't get carried away.

My strong point is not rhetoric , it isn't showmanship, it isn't big promises - those things that create the glamour and the excitement that people call charisma and warmth.

You are unfortunately most of the time defined by your success, when your success is not a major part of your personality.

Compassion in action may be the glorious possibility that could protect our crowded, polluted planet.