After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

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

Intellectual passion drives out sensuality.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

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

The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.

Being a celebrity has taught me to hide, but being an actor has opened my soul.

I passionately hate the idea of being with it, I think an artist has always to be out of step with his time.

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

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

Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.

Rock and roll music, if you like it, if you feel it, you can't help but move to it. That's what happens to me. I can't help it.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.