You can't drive a Spike with a Tack Hammer.

My success is not due to any personal superiority over other people..

Composers are the only people who can hear good music above bad sounds..

The red and white and starry blue Is freedom's shield and hope..

To the average mind popular music would mean compositions vulgarly conceived and commonplace in their treatment. That is absolutely false..

I still feel the impulse to give young writers a hearing, and I believe I have played more unpublished compositions than any other band leader in the….

I forsee a marked deterioration in American musicand a host of other injuries to music in its artistic manifestations, by virtue—or rather by vice—of….

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains..

Remember always that the composer's pen is still mightier than the bow of the violinist; in you lie all the possibilities of the creation of beauty..

I am happy now, to recall that I was not only his son but his companion, and whenever there was a hunting expedition or any other pleasure, I was alw….

Is it not the business of the conductor to convey to the public in its dramatic form the central idea of a composition; and how can he convey that id….

Any composer who is gloriously conscious that he is a composer must believe that he receives his inspiration from a source higher than himself..

There is one thing that freezes a musician more than the deadliest physical cold, and that is the spiritual chill of an unresponsive audience!.

The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of….

The average music-lover hears only the production under prevailing conditions..

Dance as though no one is watching. Love as though you've never been hurt. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth..

I firmly believe that we have more latent musical talent in America than there is in any other country. But to dig it out there must be good music th….

From childhood I was passionately fond of music and wanted to be a musician. I have no recollection of any real desire ever to be anything else..

Anybody can write music of a sort. But touching the public heart is quite another thing..

I have always believed that 98% of a student's progress is due to his own efforts, and 2% to his teacher..

Sincere composers believe in God..