I'm very happy to hear that my work inspires writers and painters. It's the most beautiful compliment, the greatest reward. Art should always be an exchange.

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

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

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

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

Music can change the world because it can change people.

We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.

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

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

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

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

And, in the end The love you take is equal to the love you make.

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

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

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.

We're not trying to change the world; just music.

Nature scarcely ever gives us the very best; for that we must have recourse to art.

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.

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

The earth has music for those who listen.