To be deprived of art and left alone with philosophy is to be close to Hell.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

It is difficult to call myself a writer, even when I stand at a podium to receive a prize, I feel uncomfortable calling myself a writer—I am merely a word criminal.

Better is half a loaf than no bread.

An advanced city is not a place where the poor move about in cars, rather it’s where even the rich use public transportation

Go for the gold: better one great column and some undistinguished ones than constant mediocrity.

The grace of the spirit comes only from heaven, and lights up the whole bodily presence.

Besides being a model, I'm a human and a woman.

The fact that we do not speak it but sing it only expresses the fact that our spoken words are inadequate to express what we want to say, that the burden of our song goes far beyond all human words.

Just as you have come to know, the false discrimination of yourself, apply this mentally to all phenomena

When you can, it's good to make healthy choices. But, I also believe in balance. It's not about being 100 percent this way or that way. It's about making healthy choices when you can.

Basketball, a game which won't be fit for people until they set the basket umbilicus-high and return the giraffes to the zoo.