Montesquieu wrote: “I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve.” If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.

The Chinese are well acquainted with this way of seeing things; they often use the image of water to illustrate it. To see down to the bottom of a lake, the water must be calm and still. The calmer the water, the farther down one can see. The exact same thing is true for the mind – the more tranquil and detached one is, the greater the depths one can plumb.

Montesquieu wrote: "I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve." If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.

Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit.