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If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, how ever measured or far away.

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If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

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It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

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The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved...the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

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If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.

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A composer is a guy who goes around forcing his will on unsuspecting air molecules, often with the assistance of unsuspecting musicians.

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Everything in the world has a spirit which is released by its sound.

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If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

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No matter how much you disagree with your kin, if you are a thoroughbred you will not discuss their shortcomings with the neighbors.

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For none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

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