The model of a composer.

Composing is like driving down a foggy road.

The old idea of a composer suddenly having a terrific idea and sitting up all night to write it is nonsense. Nighttime is for sleeping.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful.

Music does not excite until it is performed.

I am an arrogant and impatient listener, but in the case of a few composers, a very few, when I hear a work I do not like, I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.

One day I'll be able to relax a bit, and try and become a good composer.

I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music.

These two are not two, love has made them one. Amo Ergo Sum! And by its mystery each is no less but more.

I am an arrogant and impatient listener but in the case of a few composers a very few when I hear a work I do not like I am convinced that it is my own fault. Verdi is one of those composers.

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.

You can redefine your external world by an internal experience with the love of God.

... if you have nothing, you are free to choose among dreams and fantasies.

But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk.

Very little happens in my books.

One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits.

The industrial age brought compliance and compliance brought fear and fear brought us mediocrity.

[The] act of gratitude is nowadays is probably more often neglected than overdone.

I'm not really interested in politics, because I think it's just too removed from my own life. If there's a war, though, or a disaster, I want to know what's happening.