Mozart wrote so many works in his thirty-five years that it would take a lifetime just to write out the notes. We literally do not know how he did it.

It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.

Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.

Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

It is the element I miss in electronic music - no performance, no loving immersion. Maybe that is why I was never particularly drawn to electronic music.

Great music does not just make me feel good. It means something. It makes us understand. It makes us happy.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed, in other words: how the artist made it his own.

There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one's identity by falling in love.

Any creator owes a debt to past creation.

The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.

God can only show you eternity if you are willing to let go completely of the now.

I know everything and nothing about him all at the same time.

Both Rowling and Meyer, they’re speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can’t write worth a darn. She’s not very good.

I am self-taught. In other words, God is my teacher.

I once asked a young dissertation writer whether her suddenly grayed hair was due to ill health or personal tragedy; she answered: “It was the footnotes”.

Go out more, keep cheerful as well as busy, for you are the sunshine-maker of the family, and if you get dismal there is no fair weather.

When I hear someone’s in the civil rights business, I oil up my AR-25.

...if I can do it, it's not art.

Suffering does not discriminate.

I have said a lot in the past and now I think it is best that I do not comment on what I think when I look at President Bush!