The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion.

To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.

Life is denied by lack of attention, whether it be to cleaning windows or trying to write a masterpiece.

It is nothing to succeed if one has not taken great trouble, and it is nothing to fail if one has done the best one could.

Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.

The art of music is so deep and profound that to approach it very seriously only is not enough. One must approach music with a serious rigor and, at the same time, with a great, affectionate joy.

Do not take up music unless you would rather die than not do so.

Do nothing for effect. Do it for truth.

Without discipline, there can be no freedom.

Nothing is better than music; when it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for.

False notes can be forgiven, false music cannot.

A fool's bolt is soon shot.

It's amazing what a haircut and forgetting to shave will do.

Optimism is denial, so face the facts and move on

The longer you wait to do something you should do now, the greater the odds that you will never actually do it.

A woman gets stretch marks from one of two things. Either she was big and got small or she was small and got big.

There could never really be justice on stolen land.

Among the great things which are found among us the existence of Nothing is the greatest.

Although spoken English doesn't obey the rules of written language, a person who doesn't know the rules thoroughly is at a great disadvantage.

Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man, that state is obsolete.

I just want the bullying to stop. That is all I ever wanted. I used to love going to school. Now I hate it.