Life's been nothing but paperwork.

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.

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

We cannot change what we are not aware of, and once we are aware, we cannot help but change.

The opinions of souls are their state of being.

L.A. doesn't have any big personality to me; it's not inspiring.

Me personally as a man is nothing without the inspiration of JAH

In spite of despair, hope must exist. In spite of suffering, humanity must prevail. And in spite of all the differences in the world, the worst enemy, the worst peril, is indifference.

Since 1987, when I got my first one, I've been wearing a clock around my neck 24/7. You feel me? 24/7.

"You look how you look," "Be comfortable. What are you going to do? Be hungry every single day to make other people happy? That's just dumb."

American culture never necessarily made sense to me, but they should warn you: leaving comes with a huge sense of alienation that never goes away.

I just think music is one of those frontiers where people really want the "I" to be you.

One of the great skills in using any language is knowing what not to use, what not to say. There's that simplicity thing again.