Life is the space between our things.

There is nothing more musical than a sunset.

But music, don't you know, is a dream from which the veils have been lifted. It's not even the expression of a feeling, it's the feeling itself.

Music is the space between the notes.

Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

Music begins where words are powerless to express. Music is made for the inexpressible. I want music to seem to rise from the shadows and indeed sometimes to return to them.

Music is the expression of the movement of the waters, the play of curves described by changing breezes.

[on Richard Wagner] A beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.

I am more and more convinced that music is not, in essence, a thing which can be cast into a traditional and fixed form. It is made up of colors and rhythms.

Listen to no one's advice except that of the wind in the trees. That can recount the whole history of mankind.

I love music passionately. And because I love it I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.

We move between two darknesses.

The truly fearless think of themselves as normal.

We stood and watched as God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could.

Heads of state are notoriously ill prepared for their mature careers; think of Adolf Hitler (landscape painter), Ho Chi Minh (seaman), and our own Ronald Reagan.

Whether we learn how to love ourselves and others will depend on the presence of a loving environment. Self-love cannot flourish in isolation.

biography is essentially a collaborative art, the latest biographer collaborating with all those who wrote earlier.

The seven Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevent Piss-Poor Performance

Never underestimate the vital importance of finding early in life the work that for you is play.

I can't say L'Etranger influenced me to write, but for the first time I considered the possibility of telling a story that resembled my own experiences in my own voice.

The worst of having so much tact was that you never quite knew whether other people were acting naturally or being tactful too. [The human element]