The only reason you don't go on holiday, is 'cause you have to spend money.
You must renounce all superficiality, all convention, all vanity and delusion.
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.
It is a funny thing, but when I am making music, all the answers I seek for in life seem to be there, in the music. Or rather, I should say, when I am making music, there are no questions and no need for answers.
A symphony must be like the world. It must contain everything.
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.
If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you've created a special little thing, and that's what I'm looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything.
If you want to fly with eagles, stop swimming with ducks.
I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport
What are the chances you’d ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible.