When you people have a set up joke and the joke is set up straight and the words are just well written, I always say "C'mon, humans don't speak that way."

Inspired by the purse rather than the soul, the mercenary side fairly screams in many of the works put out by every day American publishers.

The real artist has no idea that he is sacrificing himself for art. He does “what he does for one reason and one reason only-he can't help doing it”

Just as the bird sings or the butterfly soars, because it is his natural characteristic, so the artist works.

French is, in many ways, more difficult for an English-speaking person to sing. It is so full of complex and trying vowels. It requires the utmost subtlety.

When the student has her voice under complete control, it is safe to take up the lyric repertoire of Mendelssohn, Old English Songs, etc. How simple and charming they are!

The sincerity of the art worker must permeate the song as naturally as the green leaves break through the dead branches in springtime.

Vocal study before age 20 is likely to be injurious, though some survive it in the hands of very careful and understanding teachers.

A student will send me an urgent appeal to hear her, saying she is poor and wants my advice as to whether it is worth while to continue her studies. I invariably refuse such requests.

The student who deceives himself into thinking that he is giving his life like an ascetic in the spirit of sacrifice for art, is the victim of a deplorable species of egotism.

We are rich in the quantity of songs rather than in the quality. The singer has to go through hundreds of compositions before he finds one that really says something.

Honor LostAmbulant sunshine piercedthe soot covered glass ~the feeble man wandered byin this ritual morning pass ...

A learned man who doesn’t restrain his passions is like a blind man holding a torch, he guides others but not himself.

It made me start to wonder if there were other people so lonely so close. I thought about “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s true, where do they all come from? And where do they all belong?

Being skilled in Catsism is like being a ninja only deadlier and not so silent. The only bad thing is the sickening grammar you have to use.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us

The tragedy in a man’s life is what dies inside of him while he lives.

Fifties advertising was a dogmatic art, to the point of pretending to be a science.

We must act out passion before we can feel it.

Once upon a time, a girl lived in a sandcastle, making monsters to send through a hole in the sky.

The other day someone left a piece of plasticine in my dressing room. I didn't know what to make of it.