Quotations

"Music is perhaps the only universal language that everyone has the potential to understand and that can bring humanity together, rather than divide it as is often the case with political, linguistic and cultural differences."

"art is a medium through which one can express the inner creative spirit which i consider to be the essence of our humanity"

"one of the great things about art for me is that it either acknowledges no limits or tries to supercede them. … …freedom, truth, beauty and meaning can only be found, for me, in the world of art - and of course in love - but the latter is often accompanied by its own problems. a mozart sonata will never let u down"

"my sole purpose in doing what i do is to give the world beautiful and meaningful music that can move people, communicate with them and uplift them out of the drudgery of the mundane daily task of merely existing…. what is the point of existing if there is no reason for it?"

"i live and breathe art."

"life…. is creativity, inspiration, ecstasy, spontaneity, intensity - and above all emotion. it is music. and as i've always said, and believe, music is emotion that u can hear. it is meaning, it is life. it is love."

"when i compose i get most of my ideas in that in between state twixt dreaming and waking... a world of dreams, ideas that flit like butterflies through your head and need to be caught gently with nets made out of gossamer, as ephemeral yet strong as the web that a spider spins, a world in which we are in contact with our Creator. before this passage gets more purple (or even pink) perhaps i should mention that this state can also be achieved after the third double scotch or a couple of good brandies."

"although i am a humanist and an absolutely convinced pacifist, one feels that the nature of man – unfortunately – is such that there will always be wars, racism, capitalism, destruction of the environment, etc. man is – to put it bluntly – his own worst enemy. it is the pure, rarefied dignity – distilled like an excellent scotch, ort he best schnaps in the world – of living your ideals with absolute conviction, and no compromise whatsoever which is the only thing that makes sense in this world."

"i will … fight for my rights, as a human being, and an artist, to be free."

"as an artist you can't make compromises and at the same time be true to your music and your art. people who are prepared to take your art with one hand but throw the artist away with the other are practising hypocritical behaviour."

"I personally reject all racial definitions such as the words „white“ or „black“ because they are artificial categories and have no real meaning, merely in my opinion encouraging racist thinking. You could line up a hundred people ranging in colour subtly from the darkest to the lightest and it would then not be possible to say where “ white” begins and “black” ends"