I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.

What force is more potent than love?

The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending.

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

What gives the artist real prestige is his imitators.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

Money may kindle, but it cannot by itself, and for very long, burn.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.

My music is best understood by children and animals.

I was born out of due time in the sense that by temperament and talent I should have been more suited for the life of a small Bach, living in anonymity and composing regularly for an established service and for God.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time; he is not always conscious of this, but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Sins cannot be undone, only forgiven.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music they should be taught to love it instead.

Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune.

I know that the twelve notes in each octave and the variety of rhythm offer me opportunities that all of human genius will never exhaust.

I am an inventor of music.

The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.

A plague on eminence! I hardly dare cross the street anymore without a convoy, and I am stared at wherever I go like an idiot member of a royal family or an animal in a zoo; and zoo animals have been known to die from stares.

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

We can neither put back the clock nor slow down our forward speed and as we are already flying pilotless on instrument controls it is even too late to ask where we are going.

A composer is not only an architect but also an inventor and he should not build houses in which he cannot live.

A good composer does not imitate he steals.

The real composer thinks about his work the whole time he is not always conscious of this but he is aware of it later when he suddenly knows what he will do.

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it.

A cultural snob is someone who claims to be familiar with the incomprehensible.

Songwriting is my gift from God.

This is God's work. Therefore it must be triumphant. There is no place for misgiving or despondency.

Many are needed to plant and water what has been planted now that the faith has spread so far and there are so many people... No matter who plants or waters, God gives no harvest unless what is planted is the faith of Peter and unless he agrees to his teachings.

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.

I frankly don't care if you agree with my stand on abortion. I take that stand because no other stand is consistent with decent principles, and no other standard is consistent with the will of God.

The robe of flesh wears thin, and with the years God shines through all things.

The good poet sticks to his real loves, those within the realm of possibility. He never tries to hold hands with God or the human race.

Humanity is the sin of God.

Fight the good fight of faith, and God will give you spiritual mercies.

We are all gifted, but we have to discover the gift, uncover the gift, nurture and develop the gift and use it for the Glory of God and for the liberation struggle of our people.

This subsistence, or manner of being of God is his one essence so far as it has personal properties.

When you focus on being a blessing, God makes sure that you are always blessed in abundance.

Two days after moving we recommended ourselves to God, Our Lord, and fled, hoping that, although it was late in the season and the fruits of the tunas were giving out, by remaining in the field we might still get over a good portion of the land.