Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.

A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.

But it's peculiar, as soon as I am in the midst of nature and by myself, everything that is base and trivial vanishes without trace. On such days nothing scares me; and this helps me again and again.

I am hitting my head against the walls, but the walls are giving way.

If you think you're boring your audience, go slower not faster.

In its beginnings, music was merely chamber music, meant to be listened to in a small space by a small audience.

Sometimes the greatest difference between being a boy and being a man is restraint.

When an animal comes between the lion and its prey, the animal first becomes the prey before the main prey.

The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.

Cinema is an art form.

Your initial opinion on just about anything may change over time.

Half-truths can be as deceptive as outright lies.

I've got a great family and a beautiful house. I feel very lucky as far as my lifestyle is concerned. I'm not really interested in fame and all its trappings.

I want to keep playing at the kind of level where I'll get respect from everybody.

I've always been terrible on regular sitcoms with lots of jokes. I don't know how to tell jokes.

no one ever really leaves Hollywood. No one really leaves unless they are called away by God. Even then, the impulse would be to come back again and make a movie about the experience.