Charles Ives

You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance. ”

There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of life and thinking about life and living life. ”

The fabric of existence weaves itself whole. ”

In 'thinking up' music I usually have some kind of a brass band with wings on it in back of my mind. ”

If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances? ”

A rare experience of a moment at daybreak, when something in nature seems to reveal all consciousness, cannot be explained at noon. Yet it is part of the day's unity. ”

Vagueness is at times an indication of nearness to a perfect truth. ”

Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration. ”

Expression, to a great extent, is a matter of terms, and terms are anyone's. The meaning of 'God' may have a billion interpretations if there be that many souls in the world. ”