“Art postulates communion, and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself.”

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

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation.

The performance has developed to such an extent in recent years that it challenges the music itself and will soon threaten it with relegation.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.

The trick is to compose what one wants to compose and to get it commissioned afterward.

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.

Composition is selective improvisation.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

Music is the sole domain in which man realizes the present.

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

All you have to do is close your eyes and wait for the symbols.

I who have set my heart on watching over the soul, in union with Good Thought, and as knowing the rewards of Mazda Ahura for our works, will, while I have power and strength, teach men to seek after Right. I have become an alien in a foreign land.

When you can make others laugh with jokes that belittle no one and your words always unite, Hafiz will vote for you to be God.

Ants, fighting together, will vanquish the lion.

Music is so naturally united with us that we cannot be free from it – even if we so desired.

I respect the state workers and I respect their unions, but we simply can’t afford to pay benefits and pensions that are out of line with economic reality.

In the 1960s, The National Education Association changed its character. The NEA changed into a union. And from that point on you can see deterioration in the quality of schooling in the United States.

The land flourished because it was fed from so many sources–because it was nourished by so many cultures and traditions and peoples.

I did a lot of sitting back and thinking about what I wanted for myself and what I wanted for my country: more unity, more support for the arts and more opportunities for young writers from marginalized groups.