This severe, ascetic music, calm and horizontal as the line of the ocean, monotonous by virtue of its serenity, anti-sensuous, and yet so intense in its contemplativeness that it verges sometimes on ecstasy

My humiliating profession of decomposer of music.

Musical ideas sprang to my mind like a flight of butterflies, and all I had to do was to stretch out my hand to catch them.

If you are embroiled in a emotional storm do what you must to get to the calm eye of the storm. Life should be lived like a stroll on a winding country path rather than a drive on a superhighway.

Right at that moment it was as if we were the only two people left in the world. And I don't mean that to sound corny; it just honestly did. The only sounds were the droning crickets and chip-chips of the bats, the farawy wind against the sand, and the occasional distant yowl of a dingo. There were no car horns.No trains. No jack-hammers. No lawnmowers No planes. No sirens. No alarms. No anything human. If you'd told me that you'd saved me from a nuclear holocaust, I might have believed you.

I fight against the void. I think I've written something acceptable, and then, when I look at it again, I find it execrable.