"Even when it was easy, music's patterning shaped the emotions . . . Music proclaimed an orderly universe, promised a better place."

“I'm a very intermediate sax player, but now that Rob Lowe is on my show, I had to cop to him. Like, 'Dude your ridiculous fake sax playing [in St. Elmo's Fire] inspired me to pick up a horn.'”

“Give 100 percent to everything you do and never give up.”

“The less self-conscious you are about what you are about, the better in a way, that is to say technically. You have to get it in your blood, not in the head.”

“Tradition is an aspiration to connect the Self with the Other. One "internalizes" the Other as one acquires a sense of what one's own tradition is, what one belongs to and what gives valid shape to one's life.”

Source : "Do Muslims Belong in the West? An Interview with Talal Asad". Interview with Hasan Azad, www.jadaliyya.com. February 3, 2015.

“I like to play the piano with lyrics as if it was a piece of love letter.”

“Let us have but one end in view, the welfare of humanity; and let us put aside all selfishness in consideration of language, nationality, or religion.”

“I'm not going to complain about the fact that people are paying attention to my work. I suppose that wouldn't be fair.”

“Violence won't solve a thing. It makes it more challenging to solve, though.”