Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.

His pagan barbarity, his explosive and angrily defiant melancholy, his demoniacal instinct . . . these are all echoes . . . of the thousand-year-old Hungarian psyche.

Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.

Competitions are for horses, not artists.

In art there are only fast or slow developments. Essentially it is a matter of evolution, not revolution.

It may well be that some composers do not believe in God. All of them, however, believe in Bach.

With maturity comes the wish to economize - to be more simple. Maturity is the period when one finds the just measure.