I write music, it’s performed. After all, my music says it all. It doesn’t need historical and hysterical commentaries. In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

When a man is in despair, it means that he still believes in something.

Real music is always revolutionary, for it cements the ranks of the people; it arouses them and leads them onward.

If they cut off both hands, I will compose music anyway holding the pen in my teeth.

A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one.

In the long run, any words about music are less important than the music.

What you have in your head, put down on paper. The head is a fragile vessel.

I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders. I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.

It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.

The most uninteresting part of the biography of a composer is his childhood. All those preludes are the same and the reader hurries on to the fugue.

A great piece of music is beautiful regardless of how it is performed.

A friend is he who can feel your heart's beating and dance with it when it is joyful, cry with it when it is torn, and inspire when it is in need.

A few years after my first son was born, he wanted to know how we chose his name, so I began reading him the story of Noah's Ark.

Every day when you wake up, ask yourself, 'What do I really, really, really want? ' You have to say really, really, really, otherwise you won't believe it.

I think I just want to make and be part of great records, because of what it brings to other people, what it gives back, is so incredible.

Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers.

I think Dogen can be a very good introduction for people who want to meditate in whatever way, whether it's yoga, qigong, or Tibetan. It can help widen and deepen anyone's meditation experience.

Books have always been important to me - my mom was a first grade teacher, so I grew up reading all the time.

I don't think his life has been in any way disfigured by the film. The film did disclose some difficult facts.

A good role comes along, and a good role is a good role.

Though philosophers like to define poetry as irrational fancy, for us it is practical, humorous, reasonable way of being ourselves.