Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.

The Prelude to Tristan and Isolde reminds me of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.

An art aims, above all, at producing something beautiful which affects not our feelings but the organ of pure contemplation, our imagination.

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

Grant that the true organ with which the beautiful is apprehended is the imagination, and it follows that all arts are likely to affect the feelings indirectly.

You cannot imagine the wild enthusiasm that these two men created in Vienna. Newspapers went into raptures over each new waltz, and innumerable articles appeared about Lanner and Strauss.

That the sweetly intoxicating three-four rhythm which took hold of hand & foot, necessarily eclipsed great & serious music & made the audience unfit for any intellectual effort goes without saying.

always the return journey to home is the sweetest, its just because we take memories home with us

I've noticed in my life that as you work on more things with more people, you spend less time hanging out with other people who are artists, creative people who give you a sense of family.

This is what is meant by last words: they are keys to unlock the afterlife. They're not last words but passwords, and as soon as they're spoken you can go.

I think getting married and then running away for 10 months would be an absolute disaster.

The only security is courage.

So South Korean ability is very much limited to handle North Korean, you know, difficulties. So we don't want to see an immediate collapse of the North Korea regime.

I suppose you can say I became an odd-job man.

Be temperate in your drinking, remembering that too much wine cannot keep either a secret or a promise.

I'm like, "Let me marry a feminist, let's do this thing." It's about time men should show up and say, "Yes, she should have access to whatever she needs."

The prize of all too precious you.