If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.

If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

Courage is endurance for one moment more

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.

I tried to put myself up for adoption several times.

Yoga helps me be a stronger runner. I can lose track of my form, and yoga reminds me how important it is.

I always feel that there's no violence in a movie - it's not real, it's a magic trick. Nobody is really dying. In fact, the people that die in my movies have gone on to become extremely successful!

while we all desire to live long, we have all a horror of being old!

Jeb Bush is my friend. I think he'd make a great president. I've nudged him for some time.

The South produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors, lawyers and poets, but certainly not engineers or mechanics. Let the Yankees adopt such low callings.

We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus - we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.