“I don’t think many people appreciate silence or realize that it is as close to music as you can get.”

“We grown-up people think that we appreciate music, but if we realized the sense that an infant has brought with it of appreciating sound and rhythm, we would never boast of knowing music. The infant is music itself.”

“I wrote and recorded music for many years, thinking I was only pleasing myself. The fact that so many people have appreciated the music, makes my life incredibly rewarding and full.”

“Most people don’t know how to appreciate the silence. They can’t help talking.”

“When people hear music that is spiritual it gets through. Music that is Godlike and loving gets through. I don’t have any power in this world, but I have spiritual power. I think God gave me my music and my talent. I’m trying to get across a feeling of spirituality; I think I have a spiritual influence on people.”

“People don’t realize how easy life is to change. You just get on the bus.”

“We do not confine people to looking at poor pictures and listening to poor music. We urge them to look at as many good pictures and hear as much good music as they can, convinced that this is the way in which they will come to understand and appreciate art and music.”

“Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.”

“I don’t think sexism is worse than racism, it’s impossible even to compare…It’s that I feel lonely in my fight against sexism, in a way that I don’t feel in my fight against racism. My friends, my family, they get racism, they get it. The people I’m close to who are not black get it. But I find that with sexism you are constantly having to explain, justify, convince, make a case for.”

“I can’t talk to you about music because you don’t know anything about music. I can talk to you about politics or sociology and all that peripheral stuff, but I can’t talk to you about music. There’s not enough information in common that I could say to you so you’d be able to understand. Besides, the people who read OUI don’t give a fuck about music anyway.”