The art of translation lies less in knowing the other language than in knowing your own.

Don't be too dismissive of children. While it's true that few children are artists, all artists are children.

Arguably, no artist grows up: If he sheds the perceptions of childhood, he ceases being an artist.

Divine fires do not blaze each day but an artist functions in their afterglow, hoping for their recurrence.

Inspiration could be called inhaling the memory of an act never experienced.

It's not evil that's ruining the earth, but mediocrity. The crime is not that Nero played while Rome burned, but that he played badly.

Humor is the ability to see three sides to one coin.

If music could be translated into human speech, it would no longer need to exist.

The beautiful are shyer than the ugly, for they move in a world that does not ask for beauty.

Nothing is a waste that makes a memory.

composition is notation of distortion of what composers think they've heard before. Masterpieces are marvelous misquotations.

If you wish for pearls, pray always.

Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man's cottage door and at the palaces of kings.

She cared about him too much, and he was a dangerous person to love. He wouldn't love her back.

I'm just living my life.

I'm really not worried about what fans think.

War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.

The best choices will always be the most loving.

The poet is a bird of strange moods. He descends from his lofty domain to tarry among us, singing; if we do not honor him he will unfold his wings and fly back to his dwelling place.

Life isn't a balance between throwing out and inviting in.

Love is God's essence; Power but his attribute: therefore is his love greater than his power.