The poet ranks far below the painter in the representation of visible things, and far below the musician in that of invisible things.

Music cannot be called otherwise than the sister of painting, for she is dependent upon hearing, a sense second to sight, and her harmony is composed of the union of its proportional parts sounded simultaneously, rising and falling in one or more harmonic rhythms.

If you're out there day after day, going around playing the same places, you pretty much think you've reached your audience. But there's more people finding my music every day.

Magic is what we do, music is how we do it.

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It's true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted.

All things considered, I could never have survived my youth without Wagnerian music. For I seemed condemned to the society of Germans. If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner.