“These two are not two, love has made them one. Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery each is no less but more.”

One day I’ll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house-the color of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and the mortar of the house.

The model of a composer.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.

I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music.

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road.

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like.

Music does not excite until it is performed.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.

I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.

When you see a mistake in somebody else, try to find if you are making the same mistake.

Charlie Christian showed me a lot, and was a great help, but even then, I realised that if I was going to make it, it was no use copying Charlie

You go through big chunks of time where you’re just thinking, ‘this is impossible – oh,this is impossible’. And then you just keep going and keep going, and you sort of do the impossible.

Do not aim low, you will miss the mark. Aim high and you will be on a threshold of bliss.

Do not stop trying just because perfection eludes you.

The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves.

You must purge yourself before finding faults in others.

When you inhale, you are taking the strength from God. When you exhale, it represents the service you are giving to the world.