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.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.

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.

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

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

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

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?

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

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

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

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

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.

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.

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.

The earth has music for those who listen.

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

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

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

To play without passion is inexcusable!