The essence of beauty is unity in variety.

It's not that music is too imprecise for words, but too precise.

Life and art are not two different things.

The trombone is too sacred for frequent use.

This is what I think art is and what I demand of it: that it pull everyone in, that it show one person another's most intimate thoughts and feelings, that it throw open the window of the soul.

Pray to God that He might create is us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us.

These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.

Never mind, put any book on the piano, and someone can turn from time to time, so I need not look as though I played by heart.

These seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words.

My dad grew up in Banbridge, Northern Ireland, desperate to get to London. I grew up in London, so I don't know what it's like to yearn for the big city from a small town.

I loved most when his eyelashes twitched and he blinked, and suddenly happiness was there inside his eyes. Unmistakable. Like a single word printed on a clean white page.

I once heard an exec say, "If you don't ask for it, we can't give it to you." We can't go through our lives just being grateful for everything.

There will be a perfect flow of energy in whatever you choose to do, and there will be a grace and power present in all of your movements.

The German air offensives against British cities in World Wars I and II not only failed to coerce the United Kingdom to surrender, but Germany also lost both wars.

You have to put your character to rest after x amount of years.

They should be shot. (on the Backstreet Boys)

Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.

So long as there is desire or want, it is a sure sign that there is imperfection. A perfect, free being cannot have any desire.

You have to really believe not only in yourself; you have to believe that the world is actually worth your sacrifices.