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

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

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

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.

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

You ate my dog, you undead freak!”Hey! Watch the slander. I hear the acceptable term is ‘corporeallychallenged’ now. No need to be rude.

Dreams do come true, but first you must dream.

Every family is a family of alligators.

Like father like son.

There is always the option of being emotionally lazy, that is, of quoting.

It is true, that all married men have their own way, but the trouble is they don't all have their own way of having it.

A sound soul dwells within a sound mind and a sound body.

I admitted that I did not understand life. What I meant was that I am bewildered by human hearts and motivations, including my own.

The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but the most difficult to play.

It's interesting, because as a musician, I don't feel like I need to be on the top of the pop charts.