Rhythm and sounds are born with syllables.

Nature endows us with the feeling that moves us in all our musical experiences; we might call her gift instinct.

We must have recourse to the rules of music when our genius and our ear seem to deny what we are seeking.

I try to conceal art with art.

When reason and instinct are reconciled, there will be no higher appeal.

Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot really be known to us without the aid of mathematics.

Emphasis on the common emotive or affective origins of music and words in the first cries of humankind undermines words.

In f-major, c* is a sonority contained within the overtones of the tonic f*.

Verse, singing, and speech have a common origin.

Time bows to authentic commitment, and it stretches to accommodate it.

Only he who has no use for the empire is fit to be entrusted with it.

Habits are safer than rules you don't have to watch them. And you don't have to keep them either they keep you.

Always keep learning. It keeps you young.

The Lord spared the fitten and the rest he seen fitten to die.

Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

Tinkering is something we need to know how to do in order to keep something like the space station running. I am a tinkerer by nature.

Laughter is essential to our equilibrium, to our well-being, to our aliveness. If we're not well, laughter helps us get well. If we are well, laughter helps us stay that way.

Don't whine... laugh.

A prudent pharmacist often vends something for your complaint. But wine merchant you do this invariably.