Saying that cultural objects have value is like saying that telephones have conversations.

I have lived in countries that were coming out of conflict: Ireland, South Africa, the Czech republic. People there are overflowing with energy.

Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

You are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing.

We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion just as affectively as by bombs.

Unforeseen surprises are the rule in science, not the exception. Remember: Stuff happens.

I do like that idea that music can work on two levels, and you only pick up on the second one after a few listens.

If God thinks proportionality is fair who are we to say that it is unfair?

It doesn't help to wait until something happens and then prosecute the offenders, especially if it's the idea of the offender to extinguish himself in the commission of the crime.

...so many great truths must be very gently introduced, with voices soft and the truths themselves understated.

Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.

What better way to head off more oil drilling, nuclear plants, than by blowing up a rig? I'm just noting the timing, here.

The Mass-and I mean every single Mass-is heaven on earth. Literally.