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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Each song is a child I nourish and give my love to. But even if you have never written a song, your life is a song. How can it not be?

Play it fuckin' loud!

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

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

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

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

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

Let silence be the art you practice.

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.

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.