Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.

Strangely, the thing I listen to 75% of the time, when I'm exercising with my headphones on is English Tudor/Elizabethan music, so music from about 1450 to the early 1600's.

I like the idea of imagining a sound and feeling a sound and then having it come out through your body, through an instrument. That's an important way to make music.

My work on hyper instruments started with simple instruments, like the piano.

The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well.

My message is to forget about dichotomies. The Brain Opera is an opera, even if it does not tell a story in the usual way. It is a psychological journey with voices - so I do consider it an opera.

Why does every society seem to want to make music when it often seems like kind of a frill.

Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.

There's many reason music exists and we are beginning to no only understand that, but measure that.

There's just an incredibly rich and interesting relationship between our listening to music and the way our minds engage.

I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting.

Blood diamonds, she thought. That’s exactly what these are. She felt almost as superstitious as the Africans now, as if the pink diamonds themselves had somehow caused all this hardship and death.

For when we quaff the gen'rous bowl, Then sleep the sorrows of our soul. Let us drink the juice divine, The gift of Bacchus, god of wine. When I take wine, my cares go to rest.

If Christianity is untrue, then no honest man will want to believe it, however helpful it might be; if it is true, every honest man will want to believe it, even if it gives him no help at all

Take it easy. Don't approach music as a religion.

If there is one thing which I would banish from the earth it is fear.

I'm itching to see Usher & Shakira work their magic. And of course, Blake is so amazing! It was tough, but I went on my gut which was Adam.

In all honesty, I'm not really familiar with Stevie Wonder's music, since country is more of my style. I really have no idea what I am doing.

People got to do something useful if they're going to take up space in the world.

May God grant us the wisdom to discover right, the will to choose it, and the strength to make it endure.

Anytime I mess up, even if it's a simple turnover, that affects me.