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I am of the opinion that the appreciation and the desire for what is good takes more study and insight than does the understanding and test for the best music and art.

That's what's great about the arts. Everything inspires you, and you get a chance to grow from watching other people and how they do their work.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

It gives me a very keen satisfaction that, after listening to my blather all those years, former students are now seeing that I wrote a book, that I did have it in me.

The great classics that, as a professional you don't get to do, you do as a student, when you don't know any better.

I also had a tremendous passion for art and read a lot.

When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it.

I've discovered over the years that being subject to both the adoration and the vilification actually makes me more disciplined. It makes me understand that it's the idea of writing a great book that propels me now, whereas it used to be the idea of success.

Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.

No one wants a masterpiece knocking around when your own book is looking for attention.