Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

Music from my fourth year began to be the first of my youthful occupations. Thus early acquainted with the gracious muse who tuned my soul to pure harmonies, I became fond of her, and, as it often seemed to me, she of me.

Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.

What I call my 'self' now is hardly a person at all. It's mainly a meeting place for various natural forces, desires, and fears, etcetera, some of which come from my ancestors, and some from my education, some perhaps from devils. The self you were really intended to be is something that lives not from nature but from God.

I was raised a Roman Catholic and had to go to the eight o'clock Mass every morning and have communion and wear a tie, kind of like a restricted life style. Then in the '60s, we got wild and let it go and started looking in other places to see where God really was, and I came back to the Christian thing.

I don't look to God for my wins. I look for God in my daily life.

I grew up in the Holiness Church, where prayer was an event.