Quotes About Inspiration

I much prefer making music to talking about it. There's something visceral about instruments and voices that transcends words.

It was kind of sort of the heavens opened up and I realized that Bach, at least, you know - out of all the classical music - needs to be a big part of my life.

I didn't know much about him, and I wasn't a big country music fan. I listened to the Beatles and David Bowie, so I didn't know a lot about him.

Music that was made in the 60s and 70s did come from a really soulful place. The seed for the songs written in the 90s were planted in those songs, even though they were samples.

The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

I was horrified by modern 12-tone music. I said to myself, 'Maybe I can find something different... maybe salvation, liberation, is possible.

I believe I inherited my sense of music from my father. My father was an ear piano player; he could just hear something and play it.

I was born with music inside me. That's the only explanation I know of

I'm proud to be one. I feel a lot stronger, a lot sexier and I think that all of that is reflected in my music.

I just want to live my life a little freely and not adhere to any schedule - just make music and have fun.

Ironically, for a few million people in the Far East, I did become an English teacher through my music.

When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music.

Good music shouldn't have a shelf life.

Music should be some kind of nourishment.

I was really into music. I started playing guitar also when I was nine. I wanted to be in the Beatles, even though John Lennon died the year I got a guitar and the Beatles broke up before I was born.

I love doing the music. I love programming beats and kind of working on the music as much, if not more, than the actual rapping.

In the mental calmness of a spiritual life, I have found that the answers to the whys in our lives are able to come to you. In my music I find the same thing.

Music is just one of the tools a director has with which to paint and I think it's one of the most effective.

We need music to restore the human spirit

I just want to create amazing music that speaks and defines who I am. I want it to be based on my life and/or what I am going through at that specific time.

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.

I think I infuse the music with a new passion. Part of this is because I have fallen in love: I am in love with the New York Philharmonic. The chemistry has just been right. Beyond expectation.

I got my interest in Lotte Lenya and the Brecht-Weill canon from my parents. And I love classical music - I got that from my parents. I love Cole Porter - that I got from my dad.