I adore tradition. I cannot stand habit. Simply to repeat is nothing, also to destroy is nothing. Tradition is never interrupted, we are always evolving but never interrupted.

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.

The coherent way of investigating any field is to examine its possible relatedness to other things.

Gehrig had one advantage over me. He was a better ballplayer.

All good novelists have bad memories. What you remember comes out as journalism; what you forget goes into the compost of the imagination.

A mother's love is a sanctuary, Where our soul can find sweet rest, From the struggle and the tension, Of life's fast and futile quest.

Variety's the source of joy below, From whence still fresh-revolving pleasures flow, In books and love the mind one end pursues, And only change the expiring flames renews.

I got all A's and was hated for it; I spoke correctly and was called a punk.

[On the metaphysical:] ... I knew in some marvelous way I had touched the hem of the unknown. And being me, I wanted to lift that hemline a little bit more.

World of words lost on the living / I take my place with the walking dead / Robbed of my voice I'm always giving / Thousands of words to this nameless dread.

Sports have become increasingly more specialized, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be fun.

It's not possible to be perfect - you can always do something better. I'm never proud of what I've done. Sometimes, I'm not ashamed.