When Brahms is in extra good spirits, he sings, "The grave is my joy".

Music is an incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for expressing the thousand different moments of the soul's moods.

Where the heart does not enter; there can be no music.

To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be satisfied with the present: that is what I spend my whole life doing

Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music.

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

Madam, you ask me how I compose. I compose sitting down.

Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul.

After the last notes of Gotterdammerung I felt as though I had been let out of prison.

I like the plot of The Nutcracker - not at all.

The creative process is like music which takes root with extraordinary force and rapidity

Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.

They also held that the way to salvation was to give way to lust and temptation in all things. And no greater percentage of them turned up here than of any other religion. Amusing, isn't it?

When was the last time you had a good belly-shaking-tear-jerking-snot-producing laugh?That long?

Being in a band is like a small family. You travel together, make music, and share time with each other.

I grew up in a household in which the Bible played very little role.

To assume that wealth or sexuality or the usage of power, any of these things are not void in nature, gives them a reality they don't actually have.

I would like to think I am feminist in some sorts.

An artist is someone who has learned to trust in himself.

Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

I believe that all roads lead to the same place - and that is wherever all roads lead to.