I am quite certain in my heart of hearts that mode...

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

Shakespeare fascinated me. He hardly ever left the country. His imagination was worldwide though reading.

Music is a performance and needs the audience.

At the age when Bengali youth almost inevitably writes poetry, I was listening to European classical music.

I'm well past the age where I'm acceptable. You get to a certain age and you are forbidden access. You're not going to get the kind of coverage that you would like in music magazines, you're not going to get played on radio and you're not going to get played on television. I have to survive on word of mouth.

When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music.

A lot of music you might listen to is pretty vapid, it doesn't always deal with our deeper issues. These are the things I'm interested in now, particularly at my age.

Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.

A bad manner spoils everything, even reason and justice a good one supplies everything, gilds a No, sweetens a truth, and adds a touch of beauty to old age itself.

The reason for the sadness of this modern age and the men who live in it is that it looks for the truth in everything and finds it.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.