Composers tend to assume that everyone loves music. Surprisingly enough, everyone doesn’t.

Someone once asked me... whether I waited for inspiration. My answer was: "Every day!"

Mozart in his music was probably the most reasonable of the world's great composers. It is the happy balance between flight and control, between sensibility and self-discipline, simplicity and sophistication of style that is his particular province... Mozart tapped once again the source from which all music flows, expressing himself with a spontaneity and refinement and breath-taking rightness that has never since been duplicated.

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

If you want to know about the Sixties, play the music of The Beatles.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."

The main thing is to be satisfied with your work yourself. It's useless to have an audience happy if you are not happy.