I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to.

People think I'm disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.

One of the very nicest things about life is the way we must regularly stop whatever it is we are doing and devote our attention to eating.

The rivalry is with ourself. I try to be better than is possible. I fight against myself, not against the other.

If children are not introduced to music at an early age, I believe something fundamental is actually being taken from them.

Music making is the most joyful activity possible, the most perfect expression of any emotion.

Some singers want the audience to love them. I love the audience.

Learning music by reading about it is like making love by mail.

You don't need any brains to listen to music.

As an art form, opera is a rare and remarkable creation. For me, it expresses aspects of the human drama that cannot be expressed in any other way, or certainly not as beautifully.

Am I afraid of high notes? Of course I am afraid. What sane man is not?

Both believers and unbelievers go through temptations

When money and fame happen too late, it's like pouring kerosene over a fire of self-loathing.

Poverty, disease, sorrow, imprisonment and other evils are the fruits borne by the tree of one's own sins.

Thrift is poetic because it is creative; waste is unpoetic because it is waste.

You go beyond 'I want it. I want to have it' - to - 'I'm going to have it

Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers?

America is the strongest empire ever, with the largest military. We spend ten times what the Russians do. And they have equal nuclear ability as we do, because they're precise.

Just because it may take longer, Doesn't mean your dream won't get done.

The only reason to buy a paper book any longer is to own it and cherish it and remember it and tell a story about it.

Every album is difficult. If it was easy, we'd make one a month.