“The great glory of travel, to me, is not just what I see that's new to me in countries visited, but that in almost every one of them I change from an outsider looking in to an insider looking out.”

“I don't know how many years it was before I arrived at a formulated philosophy that the happiest thing to do, always, when visiting an individual or a country, is to admit, by word or manner, how much I'm finding there that my life had lacked hitherto”

“He looked out of the window, the wind howling outside, and said, 'Go to sleep, whatever will be will be.”

“I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past.”

“I want my Ala to look at her father and see a man, not a coward.”

“Composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound.”

“I'M NOT A PESSIMIST! I just see the glass half empty even when it's completely full....WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!”