“Part of what made Nat Cole so remarkable, of course, is that he was as accomplished a singer as he was a pianist. While it isn’t all that unusual for artists to wear two creative hats, you can almost always tell which one they favor. But a handful of artists have done significant work in more than one field, and their ability to do so without apparent strain is one of the enduring mysteries of art…”

“If a great essayist is one who succeeds in getting his personality onto the page, then H. L. Mencken qualifies in spades. The problem is that his personality grows more predictable with closer acquaintance, just as the tricks of his prose style grow more familiar. Like most journalists, he is best consumed not in the bulk of a twelve-hundred-page boxed set but in small and carefully chosen doses…”

“We like to think that great symphony orchestras and museums are permanent monuments to the enduring power and significance of art, but in the twenty-first century, we are going to learn the hard way that this is simply not true…”

“What is it about music that gets true believers so hot and bothered? The British novelist Anthony Powell put his finger on it when he spoke in A Buyer’s Market of the ‘sensual essence’ of the fine arts. This is especially true of music, which is both incorporeal–you can’t see or touch it–and fundamentally sensual in its appeal…”

“I’ve always wanted to write a book about the fine arts called ‘What Were They Thinking?’ If I do, one of the chapters will be about how the Cleveland Plain Dealer demoted Don Rosenberg, its classical-music critic, and how Mr. Rosenberg responded by hauling his bosses into court…”

“Do you have a right not to be written about? Elie Wiesel thinks he does–and he’s prepared to sic his lawyers on anyone who thinks otherwise…”

“What, if anything, justifies the existence of a regional symphony orchestra in the 21st century? Many people still believe that an orchestra is a self-evidently essential part of what makes a city civilized. But is this true?…”

“The world would doubtless be a poorer place if nobody could see Renoir’s ‘Luncheon of the Boating Party’ or listen to the Hallelujah Chorus for a full year. But imagine the effect that such a moratorium would have on our responses to those works come next May. Wouldn’t you like to be able to recapture the immediacy with which you first made the acquaintance of Charles Foster Kane once upon a half-remembered time?…”