A great symphony is a man-made Mississippi down which we irresistibly flow from the instant of our leave-taking to a long forseen destination.
Aaron CoplandYou compose because you want to somehow summarize in some permanent form your most basic feelings about being alive, to set down some sort of permanent statement about the way it feels to live now, today.
Aaron CoplandTo stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
Aaron Copland