“When the work takes over, then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the artist listens.”

“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.”

“How should an artist begin to do his work as an artist? I would insist that he begin his work as an artist by setting out to make a work of art.”

“The artist who is too sensitive for contacts with the non-artistic world is thereby too sensitive for his vocation, and fit only to fall into gentle ecstasies over the work of artists less sensitive than himself.”

“I worked with a sketch artist, but I was driving fast when I saw the suspect, so the drawing came out blurry.”

“It was the quartets of Beethoven (numbers 12,13,14, and 15) which over fifty years, created and expanded the the audience of listeners to the quartets of Beethoven, thus achieving, as all masterpieces do, progress if not in the quality of artists, at least in the company of minds, which is largely composed these days of what was missing when the work appeared: people capable of liking it.”