"To know anything of a poet but his poetry is, so far as the poetry is concerned, to know something that may be entertaining, even delightful, but is certainly inessential."

"It should here be added that poetry habitually takes the form of verse."

"Poetry is the communication through words of certain experiences that can be communicated in no other way."

"The musician - if he be a good one - finds his own perception prompted by the poet's perception, and he translates the expression of that perception from the terms of poetry into the terms of music."

"What's missing from pop music is danger."

"The principle of the endless melody is the perpetual becoming of a music that never had any reason for starting, any more than it has any reason for ending."

"The public history of modern art is the story of conventional people not knowing what they are dealing with."

"I think my knowledge of music theory is rooted in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards - Rodgers and Hart, and Gershwin."