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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Art! Who comprehends her? With whom can one consult concerning this great goddess?

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

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have, but when you have it, you have it all over.

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

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

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

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

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

Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside

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

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

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

A great poet is the most precious jewel of a nation.