“Did Bach ever eatpancakes at midnight?”

“If their work is satisfying people don't need leisure in the old-fashioned sense. No one ever asks what Newton or Darwin did to relax, or how Bach spent his weekends. At Eden-Olympia work is the ultimate play, and play the ultimate work.”

“Did anyone tell Toscanini, or Bach, that he had to choose between music and family, between art and a normal life?”

“I'm convinced that Bach is the greatest genius who ever walked among us, and the Brandenburgs are what he wrote when he was happy.”

“No trouble ever got fixed late at night," he said. "Midnight is for regrets.”

“The soldier was like that. He was an expert in getting other people to do what he wanted. The only creature that could make the soldier do something he did not want was Midnight, and Midnight did things she did not want only when Whippersnapper wanted something. That put the kitten right at the top of the pecking order. A kitten!”