Art is never finished, only abandoned.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

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

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

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

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

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

Play it fuckin' loud!

Let silence be the art you practice.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

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

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be?

Real popular culture is folk art - coalminers' songs and so forth.

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

Music with dinner is an insult, both to the cook and the violinist.

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

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.