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

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.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

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

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

Never give up. Go and nurture. Go and nurture audacious goals. Let your greatness blossom.

It's funny, the very things I needed to learn are the things I was trying to teach you.

Let us live while we are alive!

There was a man who was worthless, and knew he was worthless, and yet however far down he tried to sink his soul, there was always some part of him capable of great action.

And I come from a small Vietnamese family. We're really close too, all ten of us.

With care, and skill, and cunning art, She parried Time's malicious dart, And kept the years at bay, Till passion entered in her heart and aged her in a day!

I think being a singer-songwriter... your job is to tell a story that other people can't really tell themselves.

If you're not living a life on the edge you're taking up too much space! ... You learn the most when you're out of your comfort zone!

You don't get to pick who you are in this life, but you can decide what you become.

Where my own mission is concerned, my thought is active, and I try to wish everyone well in spite of doubts and mistrust.