Better suffer ill, then doe ill. [Better suffer ill, than do ill. ]
The poet sees better than other mortals. I do not see things as they are, but according to my own subjective impression, and this makes life easier and simpler.
To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist.
Talent works, genius creates.
For me, music is always the language which permits one to converse with the Beyond.
Remember, there are more people in the world than yourself. Be modest! You have not yet invented nor thought anything which others have not thought or invented before. And should you really have done so, consider it a gift of heaven which you are to share with others.
When you play, never mind who listens to you.
This man is frank and earnest with women. In Fresno, he's Frank and in Chicago he's Ernest.
You and I were created for joy, and if we miss it we miss the reason for our existence. If our joy is honest joy, it must somehow be congruous with human tragedy. This is the test of joy's integrity. It is compatible with pain. Only the heart that hurts has a right to joy.
I had been brought up and trained to have the utmost contempt for people who got drunk - and I would have liked to have the boozing scholars of the Universities wheeled into line and properly chastised for their squalid misuse of what I must ever regard as a gift of the gods.
When God is about to do a great work, He pours out a spirit of supplication.