I have a genuine love affair with my audience. When I`m on stage they`re not privileged to see me. It`s a privilege for me to see them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

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

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

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

To play without passion is inexcusable!

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

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.

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 never finished, only abandoned.

I paint objects as I think them, not as I see them.

Music melts all the separate parts of our bodies together.

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

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