What is music? Music is language. A human being wants to express ideas in this language, but not ideas that can be translated into concepts.

It's always the same: mediocrities are over-valued and great men are rejected.

Comprehensibility is the highest law of all. Unity must be there. There must be means of ensuring it. All the things familiar to us from primitive life must also be used in works of art.

Indeed, man only exists insofar as he expresses himself. Music does it in musical ideas.

Music is natural law as related to the sense of hearing.

Your ears will always lead you right, but you must know why.

Art is a product of nature in general, in the particular form of human nature.

Except for the violin pieces and a few of my orchestra pieces, all of my works from the Passacaglia on relate to the death of my mother.

There are some things in life that shouldn't be given so much importance, if they don't change what is essential.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

For in the sorrow, there is also our happiness.

J. Edgar Hoover, J. Bracken Lee, J. Parnell Thomas, J. Paul Getty -- you can always tell a shithead by that initial initial.

Ultimately, my hope is to amaze myself.

There could never really be justice on stolen land.

I don’t believe in following a path set by others. You have to create a path for yourself.

Definitely avoid going out with ugly girls who say they want to be models. Not because they're ugly, but because they're mad".

I'm not an extravagant man. The fact that I can have a coffee out whenever I want still makes me feel grateful.

War: A wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization.