The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

Art not only imitates nature, but also completes its deficiencies.

Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

It's so sweet, I feel like my teeth are rotting when I listen to the radio.

People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It's like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in the river has its song.

The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

The music industry can make you feel like a prostitute.

The only escape from the miseries of life are music and cats...

Critics are the men who have failed in literature and art.

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

I think another thing is that we don't really want exclusivity. We accept that it is in the artist's interest to be on sale in every place where they sell music.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.

A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.

Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.

The spoken form is in fact a very restrained representation of what is possible in the musical language.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.