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" I think there are very few people that I would give the title of genius to, really, but Beethoven unquestionably is one of them. "

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" I wanted to be a monk at some time in my life, or a priest, so there was a kind of reflex quite early on not to be attached to anything that might be taken away. "

" I really feel something's missing if I'm not writing. "

" Silence is the necessary soil for any thought to flourish. "

" Few occupations pass the solitary hours more fruitfully than the playing of a musical instrument. "

Musical Instrument

" In Britten or Berg, there's a tension between the sweet and the sour, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the tonal and the atonal, the happy and the sad. That, to me, is what all western art is about - that tension. It's why we want to say anything at all. "

" Most people are at a concert because they want to be inspired, entertained, moved; we musicians have the mission to be bringers of joy, of ecstasy. "

" If you are not living in the same area when you are looking for property, it is a nightmare because you come down for a day or two, have appointments to see places, and have to be able to make instant decisions before flying off to St. Louis or somewhere. "

" I'd never thought about living in London until about 1999. "

" There are many doors to the heart. "

" I have had a place in New York in the musicians' district on the Upper West Side since 1986. "

" Life is an incurable disease leading to death, but it's also an unrequested gift, which, if we can manage to keep giving it away to others, can keep giving back everything to us. "

" To me, spirituality is the everyday stuff which we're dealing with all the time. It's not going into some ecstatic trance. It's changing a nappy, or making a meal at the end of a very tiring day. "

" Food waste is an atrocity that is reducible, if not completely avoidable. "

" The Internet tempts us to think that because an email or a new website can be accessed in seconds that everything works at the same instant speed. Art is more like the growth of a plant. It needs time and space. "

" The daily glitter of skyscrapers competing with the stars is an unnecessary, unforgivable decadence. "

" In anything, there has to be that moment of fasting, really, in order to enjoy the feast. "

" I wanted to be a disc jockey. "

" Painting is just a hobby. I really don't think of it much more than that. But writing music and writing words... my life would feel as if it had a big hole if I took those away. "

" I can admire music where you feel the composer has everything organized and perfectly shaped, but it doesn't touch me. I like to feel that a composer is wounded, like all of us. "

" Live in the present moment. The past and future are nonexistent. Only the present can be grasped or, better, embraced. "

" One of the things that touches me most when I play for an audience is that although we may be unable to communicate in words or have diametrically opposed views on hot-button issues, while the music sounds we can be at peace, we can be friends. The vibrations that fill an auditorium have no passports, and they unite ears when hearts may be divided. "

" The hierarchy is set out for me. The first priority is piano. I have to be 101 percent prepared. I find that at other times of the day, if the creative juices are working, I might want to write or compose. "

" I've always written - about music, art, things going on around the world. The danger is that it becomes too personal. I don't think people want it at that level of intimacy. "

" I don't think of faith as something that's like a rock, that never changes. I think it's something that's very fluid, always changing. "