To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.

It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.

Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.

Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.

It is the element I miss in electronic music - no performance, no loving immersion. Maybe that is why I was never particularly drawn to electronic music.

Great music does not just make me feel good. It means something. It makes us understand. It makes us happy.

Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.

I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed, in other words: how the artist made it his own.

There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one's identity by falling in love.

Any creator owes a debt to past creation.

The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.

Love is God, and the one that believes in love, believes in God.

My problem is I'm a man of no convictions - at least, I think I am.

I'm only in competition with my last level. It don't have nothing to do with music or anything. And the last level is hard competition, the last place you were.

There will always be a few people who just want to knock you down or are jealous or just want to be horrible for the sake of it. I don't know what drives someone to be nasty.

I had a lot of resistance, and not just to fame. I was always conscious of not changing.

Faced with the way the system does you in the 'hood sometimes, if you don't literally get out, your chances are slim. You'll definitely die mentally. You'll pretty much die physically.

Failure isn't a character quality. It's just an event. How you respond to failure is your character.

What you were is forever who you are.

This website is the dream of people who want to change the culture of state government.

Now, Social Security through the years, for many many people, has been a terrible investment. It's really a tax, that's all it is. Social Security is a tax.