“I believe that art has a kind of rightness, as in music, when we hear whether or not a note is false”

“Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of music do when they hear a false note.”

“While human nature largely determines how we hear the notes, it is nurture that lets us hear the music.”

“As in music, when we hear the crescendo building, suddenly if the music stops, we begin to hear the silence as part of the music.”

“Strictly speaking, there are no such things as good and bad impulses. Think...of a piano. It has not got two kinds of notes on it, the 'right' notes and the 'wrong' ones. Every single note is right at one time and wrong at another. The Moral Law is not any one instinct or set of instincts: it is something which makes a kind of tune (the tune we call goodness or right conduct) by directing the instincts.”

“That’s the secret to performance: conviction. The right note played tentatively still misses its mark, but play boldly and no one will question you. If one believes there is truth in art – and I do – then it’s troubling how similar the skill of performing is to lying. Maybe lying is itself a kind of art. I think about that more than I should.”