Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have.

When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have.

I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.

I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

For discords make the sweetest airs.

For discords make the sweetest airs.

Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips read more

Modern recording has made it so that people can spend forever taking shortcuts and making everything uniform, but that strips music of what makes it exciting.

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: read more

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.

There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an read more

There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.

Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.

Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle.