"Technology is no savior. We can eat, sleep, look at screens, make money — all aspects of our physical existence — but that doesn’t mean anything."

"Art is the exact opposite. It’s infinite, and without it, the world wouldn’t exist as it does. It represents the immaterial soul: intuition, that which we feel in our hearts.... There’s an axiom that says there is no such thing as 'original' music. After what we could consider to be the first sound, from a spiritual perspective — 'om' to some, 'amen' to others — it’s all the same. Musicians borrow different parts and make them their own, but there’s nothing really new.... The spirit of art shines through in a performance when I stop thinking — when I let the music play itself, not just the one song that I’ve memorized, but all of the songs and experiences I have in my mind.... When I go to the museum and I look at a piece of art, I’m transported. I don’t know how, or where, but I know that it’s not a part of the material world. It’s beyond modern culture’s political, technological soul. We’re not here to live forever. Humans and materialism die. But there’s no dying in art."

From "Art Never Dies/It outlives the contentious political veneer that we cast over everything" by the jazz great Sonny Rollins (in the NYT). Rollins is 89 years old.