All you need is passion. If you have a passion for something, you'll create the talent.

Music is art, and once you become an artist, you need to learn how to accept criticism.

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

You'll learn more from your accidents than anything that you could ever learn at school.

I spent another six years in Europe covering sporting events such as the Tour de France.

I love to go to the bar close by for a good espresso and have a chat with the bartender.

I express myself using my classical skills to write more complex forms of popular music.

I never read bad reviews about myself, because my friends invariably tell me about them.

I also work with the regular orchestras in Munich, Germany and other similar orchestras.

The score is not a bible, and I am never afraid to dare. The music is behind those dots.

I really like stories, so in a way it doesn't matter for me if they are real or fiction.

Silence ought also to be the core of each concert. Remember the anagram: listen = silent.

Elliott Carter does not write the kind of music that the kids go off to school whistling.

By the time a man realizes that his father was right, he has a son who thinks he's wrong.

You know, when you've established a certain thing, what can you do? You're stuck with it.

My future is in my past and my past is my present. I must now make the present my future.

I have a great many shortcomings, but writing for something on time has never bothered me.

I hope it does not take the rest of my life until I find what it is I've been looking for.

They say that these are not the best of times, but they're the only times I've ever known.

There's a deep-seated paranoia that Americans have about not being Americans or something.

I don't say that I never feel fear before a performance, but I have learned to channel it.

It broke my heart when I learned the moon had been passing the sun’s light off as its own.

If I ever met Dolly Parton for sure, I would just not be able to say anything. I love her.

Doing the Five Tibetan Rites exercises every day - it makes me feel at home wherever I am.

Harpo, she's a lovely person. She deserves a good husband. Marry her before she finds one.

There are three kinds of pianists: Jewish pianists, homosexual pianists, and bad pianists.

I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints - the sinners are much more fun.

You just sit home and masturbate. The phone is going to ring soon, but you just can't wait.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.

Every three or four shows, we have somebody that will come up onstage and propose marriage.

Those who want to know what sound goes into my music should come to NY and open their ears.

I am inspired by the films of Pedro Almodóvar, as they are funny, sad, and extremely weird.

Humanity seems doomed to do more evil than good. The greatest ideal on earth is human love.

I realize it's possible in ways both large or small to make a difference in someone's life.

Maybe we didn't have many possessions, but we never went hungry, were cold, or lacked love.

Critics have said I write without spontaneity, in cold blood. I don't. I write in hot blood.

I compare songwriting to childbirth. How many kids can you have before your uterus explodes?

I can't play my songs on the smaller harp. I have a Celtic harp. I can't do the key changes.

As a composer, it is a great thrill for me to have an album in the top 15 of the pop charts.

I have always loved composers who have been connected with folk traditions of popular music.

I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios.

And then I went into television; and then television moved from the East Coast to Hollywood.

You accomplish what you want to accomplish. I just don't ever want to hurt anybody doing it.

Russians call me German, Germans call me Russian, Jews call me a Christian, Christians a Jew.

Hope you don't think this is Billy Joel unplugged. I'm a piano player. I'm already unplugged.

Some love is just a lie of the heart, the cold remains of what began with a passionate heart.

The greatness of a musician is measured by the degree of fanaticism he brings to his playing.

I'm one of the ones who believed the Iraq War was a complete mistake from the very beginning.

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., M.D., or Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don't have a J.O.B.

My affiliation with England is borne out by the fact that I do come back for periodic visits.

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