I don't just write music to esthetically satisfy somebody. The reason I write music is that I feel it's a vehicle or channel which leads to your true self, your essence.

We become what we habitually contemplate

Whenever I heard a musician do something that I could not explain, I went back to the theory in order to figure it out.

I believe that most of what was said of God was in reality said of that Spirit whose body is Earth.

Education has a larger function than the mere communication of knowledge.

If America has a future, Jazz has a future. The two are inseparable.

On the other side of every mountain was another mountain.

To be infinite, lose yourself in infinite love.

Knowing the names of things is a way to pay respect to the beauty of the world...

It takes strength to forgive and love unconditionally.

You talk as if Bea were a trophy.''No, as if she were a blessing, ' Fermin corrected.

The pain of loss, moreover, however agonizing, however haunting in memory, quiets imperceptibly into acceptance as the currents of active living and of fresh emotions flow over it.

Men rush toward complexity; but yearn for simplicity.

I was told that Federalist Society conventions were intellectually serious, courteous, and open to various points of view, and that has certainly been my experience.

Give yourself the mental freedom to enjoy the process, because the process of writing is a long one.

To hear of a thousand deaths in war is terrible, and we 'know' that it is. But as it registers on our hearts, it is not more terrible than one death fully imagined.