To play without passion is inexcusable!

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

And I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.

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

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

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.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

Singers come and go, but if you're a good actor, you can last a long time

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

Poets and heroes are of the same race, the latter do what the former conceive.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.

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

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.