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 washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

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

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.

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

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

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.

Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

One thing that really appeals to me is this idea of music being a living thing that has an evolution that, in a way, enables the artist to sell a process rather than a piece of product.

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 absence of limitations is the enemy of art.

Every actor in his heart believes everything bad that's printed about him.

Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.

Comedy is the blues for people who can?t sing.

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

One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.