Fame alone raises herself to Heaven, because virtuous things are in favour with God.
Play is the taproot from which original art springs. It is the raw stuff that the artist channels with all his learning and technique.
The most potent muse of all is our own inner child.
There are no prescriptive solutions, no grand designs for grand problems. Life's solutions lie in the minute particulars involving more and more individual people daring to create their own life and art, daring to listen to the voice within their deepest, original nature, and deeper still, the voice within the earth.
In improvisation, there is only one time. This is what computer people call real time. The time of inspiration, the time of technically structuring and realizing. . . the time of playing it, and the time of communicating with the audience, are all one.
If I "try" to play, I fail; if I force the play, I crush it; if I race, I trip. Any time I stiffen or brace myself against some error or problem, the very act of bracing would cause the problem to occur. The only road to strength is vulnerability.
Surrender means cultivating a comfortable attitude toward not knowing, being nurtured by the mystery of moments that are dependably surprising, ever fresh.
Have as much good nature as good sense since they generally are companions.
Lincoln would be just like me. He wouldn't know what the hell to do.
Chess is my profession. I am my own boss; I am free. I like literature and music, classical especially. I am in fact quite normal; I have a Bohemian profession without being myself a Bohemian. I am neither a conformist nor a great revolutionary.
When you think back today to a time more than 70 years ago when Germany was a terrible place, a place people were afraid of, it is a wonderful development that we have gone from being a terrible place to a place that people dream of.