“Self-assertion may deceive the ignorant for a time; but when the noise dies away, we cut open the drum, and find it was emptiness that made the music.”

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”

“Through music we may wander where we will in time, and find friends in every century.”

“In those days it was either live with music or die with noise, and we chose rather desperately to live.”

“They hear drums, we hear music.”

“A goal stood before Siddhartha, a single goal: to become empty, empty of thirst, empty of wishing, empty of dreams, empty of joy and sorrow. Dead to himself, not to be a self any more, to find tranquility with an emptied heard, to be open to miracles in unselfish thoughts, that was his goal. Once all of my self was overcome and had died, once every desire and every urge was silent in the heart, then the ultimate part of me had to awake, the innermost of my being, which is no longer my self, the great secret.”