The world feels spacious and friendly when it accommodates our desires, and cramped when it frustrates them. - Yi-Fu Tuan

for humans, no matter what the warmth and duration of human contact and what the size of the group, a periodic sense of isolation is inescapable; it is no less than the human condition.

To forgive is to erase a past, depriving it of its power to stain the present.

At the highest level of achievement, classical music has the feel of an intimate conversation between two individuals and a mass celebration of our common humanity.