The meaning of song goes deep. Who in logical words can explain the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for a moment gaze into that!
The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer.
Music is this divine thing, the closest that we can get to something divine. It's like this instinct we all own, and some of us have found a way to hear that music and write it down and share it with people.
I believe in the Devil. I believe there's a God, too. I met God at church - the Catholic Church.
My experiences with science led me to God. They challenge science to prove the existence of God. But must we really light a candle to see the sun?
The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.
I've met people of great faith. I sat in the home of Billy Graham and in the residence of Cardinal Dolan and prayed with these men of God.
Is it conceivable that mysticism is a mark of inadequate art?
To him who has had the experience no explanation is necessary, to him who has not, none is possible.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.
Ten times a day something happens to me like this - some strengthening throb of amazement - some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.
Wherever I go throughout the world - no matter the language, no matter the culture - I thrill to hear the testimonies of the Saints.
For me, music is for the soul - no matter whether the song is composed by me or by someone else.
At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.
God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.
I'm always hoping for the nights that are inspired where you almost have an out of body experience.
Live interaction with a crowd is a cathartic, spiritual kind of exchange, and it's intensified at a festival.
The 'kingdom of God' is not something one waits for; it has no yesterday or tomorrow, it does not come 'in a thousand years' it is an experience within a heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.
The most important thing of all is that God is talking to me.
The Holy Land... What an experience. I will never forget this day.
The power of psychedelics... is that they often reveal, in the span of a few hours, depths of awe and understanding that can otherwise elude us for a lifetime.
Mysticism is not this or that particular cup on the table; it is the water poured into all of them.
He pass'd the flaming bounds of place and time: The living throne, the sapphire blaze, Where angels tremble while they gaze, He saw; but blasted with excess of light, Closed his eyes in endless night.
Here ends my forever memorable first High Sierra excursion. I have crossed the Range of Light, surely the brightest and best of all the Lord has built. And, rejoicing in its glory, I gladly, gratefully, hopefully pray I may see it again.
The only reward the musician receives is music: the privilege of standing in the presence of music when it leans over and takes us into its confidence. As it is for the audience. In this moment everything else is irrelevant and without power. For those in music, this is the moment when life becomes real.
