On matters of intonation and technicalities I am more than a martinet - I am a martinetissimo.

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

I simply make music, and people have always been foolish enough to pay me for it. I never told them that I would have done it all for nothing.

Conscience is that which hurts when everything else feels marvelous.

The highest reaches of music come thrillingly close to the central core and essence of life itself.

As a boy I remember how terribly real the statues of the saints would seem at 7 o'clock Mass-before I'd had breakfast. From that I learned always to conduct hungry.

Music appeals to me for what can be done with it.

They lived like monkeys still, while their new god powers lay around them in the weeds.

If there were a nation of Gods, it would govern itself democratically. A government so perfect is not suited to men.

Love is a better way.

He [Barack Obama] might have a pen, and he might have a phone, but what he does not have is the constitutional power to run this country like a dictator.

You take the job very seriously and between action and cut, that's where your focus should be. And then there's a lot of levity in between and a lot of good fun.

I think most people that do comedy write for themselves. I don't think there is any other way you can do it, really. Otherwise it would be quite cynical.

The function of good software is to make the complex appear to be simple.

No, when I worked as an accountant I was falling asleep waiting for 5 o'clock.

I would rather trust in the living God than in any other power on earth

...he came to the conclusion that you cannot depend on people, and that you can live in peace only if you keep them at arm's length.