Leonard Bernstein

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.

I am a composer, conductor, and pianist, but above all, I am a teacher.

The true artist helps the world by revealing moral truths.

Conducting is like riding a wild horse.

My work is a search for truth.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

Life is a lot like jazz... it's best when you improvise.

The score is the Bible, but the performance is the sermon.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty.

I believe in the redemptive power of art.

Composing is like driving down a road at night with no headlights.

The older I get, the more I see the unity of all things.

Humor is the great thing, the saving thing.

Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

To be a success in the world of art, one must forget the world.

The magic of music is that it can say what cannot be said.

A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.

The greatest music is always a journey from the known to the unknown.

The best way to know a thing is to love it.