I'd rather hold one note for an hour and modulate it so that it means something than play 3,000 notes in 15 seconds.

For the world to be interesting, you have to be manipulating it all the time.

Feelings are more dangerous than ideas, because they aren't susceptible to rational evaluation. They grow quietly, spreading underground, and erupt suddenly, all over the place.

You know that in order to copyright material somebody has to write it down for you. Any piece of recorded material has to be scored in order for it to be copyrighted. I've seen the scores of my things and they don't resemble the music in any way. If you give them to somebody who has never heard the music and say, "What does this sound like to you?" they'll play you something that has no relationship with the music it derives from. Notation simply isn't adequate.

Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, "Well, if everyone likes it it can't be that good." Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.

As soon as I hear a sound, it always suggests a mood to me.

I do sometimes look back at things I've written in the past, and think, 'I just don't remember being the person who wrote that.'