I don't think America has ever had a center the way London is the center of England or Dublin is the center of Ireland.
One does not play the piano with one's fingers, one plays the piano with one's mind.
The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but rather the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity.
I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach.
Isolation is the indispensable component of human happiness.
I think that if I were required to spend the rest of my life on a desert island, and to listen to or play the music of any one composer during all that time, that composer would almost certainly be Bach. I really can’t think of any other music which is so all-encompassing, which moves me so deeply and so consistently, and which, to use a rather imprecise word, is valuable beyond all of its skill and brilliance for something more meaningful than that — its humanity.
I believe that the only excuse we have for being musicians and for making music in any fashion, is to make it differently, to perform it differently, to establish the music's difference, vis-a-vis our own difference.
I thought the world had actually ended. I thought nothing good could ever happen again. I thought anything might happen if I wasn't vigilant. I didn't eat. I didn't go out. I didn't want to see anyone. But I survived, Paul. Much to my own surprise, I got through it. And life. . . well, gradually became livable again.
Remember that basketball is a game of habits. If you make the other guy deviate from his habits, you've got him
Nothing will prepare you for singing the truth like about 35 years in the music business, financial troubles and a couple trips to jail,. . . It will get you really humble and really truthful, and gets you ready to sing out about who and what saved you.
True art tries not to attract attention in order to be noticed.